Political Quotes

“I include in the Record an article from Claremont Review of Books, spring, 2022, titled ``In the Red,'' by Jeffrey H. Anderson. In the Red Our glidepath to insolvency. When Ross Perot won an impressive 19 percent of the popular vote as an independent candidate for president in 1992, his main issue was the national debt. In one of his unusual, half-hour-long campaign ads, Perot declared, ``Just this year, we ran up $341 billion in new debt . . . . That's our legislators and our president trying to buy our vote, this year, with what used to be our money.'' Three decades later, our national debt--which reached $4 trillion the year that Perot ran--has hit $30 trillion. If our debt were to keep rising at that rate over the next 60 years, it would increase more than 50-fold and surpass $1.5 quadrillion (a quadrillion, which sounds like a made-up number, is a thousand trillions). The portion of the national debt that really matters is the almost 80 percent that's held by entities--whether foreign or stateside--other than the federal government. Such ``debt held by the public,'' which is fueled by deficit spending, has to be paid back to outside entities, whereas debt not held by the public merely involves intragovernmental transfers. Foreign holdings compose about a third of all debt held by the public. Japan and China hold by far the most (over $1 trillion each), some of which belongs to private investors and some to government entities.…”