John Spratt: “When the President sold his tax cuts to the Congress, his Treasury Secretary and his Director of OMB both said, We will…”

“When the President sold his tax cuts to the Congress, his Treasury Secretary and his Director of OMB both said, We will not need to come back to you until 2008 to ask for the debt ceiling of the United States to be increased. They were back the next year, 2002. They said, We have incurred so much debt, despite our intentions, that we need to raise the legal ceiling on the debt of the United States by $450 billion. The next year, 2003, they were back again. The tax cuts were beginning to be fully implemented, taking a toll on the bottom line, with other effects like a recession, like increased military expenses. But all of this added up to a need to increase the debt ceiling by $984 billion. Let me put that in context. The entire national debt of the United States before Ronald Reagan took office was less than $984 billion accumulated since the beginning of the Republic. Then last November, before we could adjourn, Treasury was back, the administration was back, and they said, Before you can leave here, unless the government is going to shut down, the ceiling on the debt of the United States has to be raised again by $800 billion. That means that this $984 billion increase made on May 26, 2003, lasted only 16 months.”