Tim Ryan: “That is it. Putting the party that you belong to should not come first. The Republican Party should not come over the…”

“That is it. Putting the party that you belong to should not come first. The Republican Party should not come over the interests of the country. All we are saying is that the Republican majority has had control of this Chamber since 1994. They control the Senate, and they control the White House. They pull all the levers of government. Whether it is emergency management, failure; poverty rates, up; tuition rates, doubled; health care costs, up 15 to 20 percent a year. The Republicans take public tax dollars and give it away in corporate welfare. Mr. Speaker, $16 billion in public tax money went to the oil companies and the energy companies and subsidies, and $700 billion in the medicare prescription drug bill. Now, the Democratic Party wants to lead, and we want to lead and put the interests of the country before what is necessarily best for the Democratic Party. And here is a great example: In 1993, when we were running huge deficits, the Democratic- controlled House, the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Clinton passed a balanced budget bill that led, without one Republican vote, that led to the greatest economic expansion in the history of the United States of America. And it was not popular and it was not fun, and many Democrats lost their seats over it. But you know what? You have got to balance your budget. And someone, more than one person was a statesman to make that decision.…”