Political Quotes

“Madam President, we have had a lot of discussion on the floor of this Chamber about the challenge of our deficit and our debt, and these are indeed very important issues. It is important to remember exactly how we got here because it was only one decade ago that we were running large surpluses at the conclusion of the Clinton administration. In fact, these surpluses were so large that economists were starting to argue over just what would we do if we paid off our entire debt. Didn't there need to be instruments of last resort, of great security, such as Treasury bonds? Didn't we need to preserve some deficit or debt in order to have that instrument available to stabilize society? Well, would it not be great to have that debate now? I remember being absolutely thrilled that we were going to turn over a debt-free America to our children. But what ensued? President Bush had a different view. He said: You know what. Let's spend these surpluses we are generating and do breaks for the best off in our society. Let's take and establish a new, major program--Medicare Part D--and not pay for it. Let's embark on wars around this planet and not raise funds to pay for them. The result of that was that those tremendous surpluses were reduced to huge deficits in short order. Indeed, the 10-year projection went from a $5 trillion surplus to a $5 trillion shortfall.…”