Political Quotes

“there is a growing concern that the President's economic program, and in particular the tax increases that were incumbent to that economic program, are beginning to undermine the long-term economy in this country. The question is what are the signs of that? The majority leader, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], gave us a formula for making that determination here some years ago. And I see him on the floor, and maybe he would explain the formula during my time. What the gentleman pointed out was that if you take another $10.2 billion in trade deficits, that translates into the loss of another 250,000 good jobs for American workers, and signals a growing weakness in our economy. He said that back in 1989. I would simply point out to the House that last year we had $40 billion in trade deficits. That means that the Clinton economic program lost us over one million jobs, and translated into a growing weakness in the economy. So far this year we have had over $10 billion in trade deficits, and that translates into a loss of another 250,000 good jobs and signals a growing weakness in our economy. The formula, it seems to me, is one that Americans need to understand, that as we hear all of these rosy predictions out of the White House about what is going on in the economy, the underlying problems in the economy are very apparent, and are very, very well described by the Gephardt formula.”