Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I will vote today for H. Con. Res. 112, authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, because we have a duty to address our nation's looming fiscal obligations. Simply put, we cannot continue to kick the proverbial can down the road. When I came to the floor to vote for last year's budget, we were $14 trillion in debt. Today, we are $15.5 trillion in debt. It is projected we could be $17 trillion in debt by the end of the year and $21 trillion in debt by 2021. This will be our fourth straight year of trillion dollar deficits. Four straight years. We are currently spending 10 cents of every dollar on interest to finance the debt, even though we're borrowing money at historically low rates. If we realistically assume that rates will rise, we could be spending close to 1 out of every 6 dollars to finance the debt by the end of the decade. And that is under the best case scenario. That is money that could be going to our national defense, repairing our roads and bridges or life-saving cancer research. In 1970, 5 percent of debt held by the public was in foreign hands. In 1990, it was 19 percent. Today, more than 40 percent of our publically held debt is in foreign hands. Who are our bankers?…”