Political Quotes

“over the decades, there is a lot of conversation here in the Senate about deficits and debt. And every now and then, there is a significant bipartisan effort to take on that challenge in a responsible way. But the biggest historic bipartisan effort occurred in 1974, just over a half century ago. And in that effort, Democrats and Republicans together said: Let's start using honest numbers when we are engaged in spending and revenue raising so we will quit having smoke and mirrors, quit pretending things are not what they are, quit selling--if you will--lipstick on a pig. Well, that effort created the Congressional Budget Office to get nonpartisan estimates. That effort created a strategy of saying we will have a regular budgeting process; and for reducing the deficits, we will have a special process called reconciliation only for reducing the deficit. And that special process had three very significant components. One was reconciliation would not be used to create any deficits in the budget window that is in the 10-year window. The second is that it would not create any deficits in any single title in any single year any year after the first 10 years. And the third was that they would use--all of us would use--the nonpartisan numbers delivered to us on revenue through the Joint Committee on Taxation and on programs through the Congressional Budget Office.”