Political Quotes

“Mr. President and colleagues, back in 1974, the Senate and the House were very agitated over the increases in the national annual deficit that was adding considerably to the national debt. They said we needed to do something about this. The levels that they were concerned about at that time seem so small, to date. The debt-to-GDP ratio was 23 percent. Now we are over 100 percent. The annual deficit was about $6 billion. Now we are at about $2 trillion of annual deficit. The total debt was only a third of a trillion rather than, now, $37 trillion. But those increases were seen as such a threat to the future of our Nation that Democrats and Republicans together, House Members and the Senate together, said: We have to get this under control. So they created a bill--the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act--to say: We can't let this go forward. Here is what it did. First of all, it created a fast-track for a special bill called a reconciliation bill that would reduce the deficit and not add more to the debt. Second of all, it says that we have to have integrity in numbers. When Republicans are in charge, they tend to increase the deficits and then want to use smoke screens in order to say: We are not really doing that. When the Democrats are in charge, the same thing. They both wanted to undertake strategies that increase the deficit but pretend they were being fiscally responsible.…”