Political Quotes

On the recordNovember 28, 2017
Mr. President, I want to address this body and talk about an issue that we do not talk about enough--the deficit. It is an issue that, for whatever reason, we have stopped talking about in Washington, DC. We talk about tax policy, which we should. We talk about disaster relief areas, which we should. We talk about healthcare policy, which we should, and a lot of other things. We have stopped talking about the debt and deficit, and I think that is a mistake for us. You see, after 2011, the trend moved from a high point. Deficit spending that year was $1.3 trillion--overspending in a single year. After that point, the deficit went down a little bit each year until 2015. In 2016 our deficit number--that is a single year of overspending--started going back up. It went up in 2016, and it went up again in 2017. It is turning in the wrong direction. As you will recall and as many people in this body will recall, deficits were a major topic for us starting in 2010. Each year, Congress was trying to find ways to be able to reduce the deficit. That does not seem to be the issue anymore. What I bring is a set of solutions and a set of ideas. How do we get out of this? Are there bipartisan solutions to actually deal with deficit overspending? There are priority things that we need to spend money on, and we should spend money on those things.…
Said by
James Lankford
Republican · Oklahoma

Share & report

More from James Lankford

Dec 5, 2024

Mr. President, for over a year, I have worked to get rid of a rule that is driving every one of my small businesses in Oklahoma absolutely crazy. A lot of Americans have no idea what the beneficial ownership rule is, but if you own a small…

Congressional Record · 2024-12-05
Jan 8, 2025

Mr. President, as this body knows well, for the past hour, we have had multiple colleagues who have come to this floor to be able to talk about how do we make the government more efficient. They have been talking about, out loud, what they…

Congressional Record · 2025-01-08
Sep 19, 2024

Mr. President, it is the middle of September. The end of the funding year is actually just over 10 days away. The Senate has brought up exactly zero appropriations bills, although the Committee on Appropriations has worked in a bipartisan…

Congressional Record · 2024-09-19
Feb 26, 2025

Mr. President, President Biden liked to be able to say over and over again that we are producing record amounts of oil and gas. Some of my Democratic colleagues have even come to this floor in the last couple of days and have said: We…

Congressional Record · 2025-02-26

Other voices in this conversation