Jeff Duncan: “one of the main reasons the economy has been so strong over the last few years is that following the 1994 elections, we…”

“one of the main reasons the economy has been so strong over the last few years is that following the 1994 elections, we finally started bringing Federal spending under control. Alice Rivlin, who was the President's budget director, put out a memo in 1993 saying that if we did not make changes, we would have deficits of over $1 trillion a year by the year 2010 and $4 trillion to $5 trillion a year by 2030. If we had allowed that to happen, our economy would have crashed. Now we are actually seeing surpluses. But it is politically popular and very easy to promise everything to everybody. The National Taxpayers' Union said the President's State of the Union address would require a $288.4 billion increase in spending in the first year alone. Last week Newsweek magazine published a chart showing we would have a shortfall of $2.3 trillion in the next 15 years if we enacted all of these programs. If we do this, Madam Speaker, we will very quickly be in serious trouble in our economy once again. We must not let it happen.”