Political Quotes

“I'm being facetious, obviously. A $407 billion deficit for 1 year is a very significant deficit, third highest ever submitted behind only the budget he submitted last year and the budget from 2004. But I really appreciate the gentlewoman giving us a little walk down memory lane because we're in a Presidential election year this year, so people are thinking about Presidential politics. And I like to remind my colleagues to think back to the 2000 Presidential election, and let's remember what the discussion was at that time. The Clinton administration was wrapping up. We're in our fourth consecutive year of budget surplus at that time. And as the gentlewoman pointed out with the previous chart, those surpluses were forecast as far as the eye could see, $5.6 trillion forecasted deficit over 10 years. So the discussion during the Presidential election in the year 2000 between Vice President Gore and then-Governor Bush was, what are we going to do with all this money? This is an incredible surplus. We're awash in money. Are we going to shore up the Social Security trust fund? Are we going to pay down the debt? What are we going to do with this money? Well, now it's 8 years later, and unfortunately we are not having that discussion anymore, because instead of having had a $5.6 trillion surplus, as the gentlewoman pointed out, we have had a $3.5 trillion deficit over just the past 7 years.”