Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I think by now you have seen all kinds of different versions of this depressing chart of total U.S. debt. Back in 1998--and we will be talking about that year--when Bill Clinton was President and we had our first budget surplus since 1969, the debt level was about $5\1/2\ trillion. When I arrived here in my first year in the Senate in 2011, the debt was about $14 trillion. I ran, quite honestly, because we were mortgaging our children's future. I will talk a little bit about 2014 when President Obama had a certain spending level that was up to $17\1/2\ trillion. As recent as 2019, before the pandemic, our debt was somewhere around $22\1/2\ trillion. Today, our debt exceeds $36 trillion on a path toward much higher heights. If you look at President Biden's final budget here, he is predicting our total debt will be $52 trillion in 10 years. This is clearly not sustainable. As I said, this is a depressing reality. The result of all that debt--one of the many results--was the devaluation of the dollar. A dollar you held in 1998 is only worth 51 cents today. We have basically cut the value of a dollar in half since 1998. In 2014 when President Obama was President--now the value of that dollar is only worth 74 cents. The value of the dollar prior to the pandemic, 2019, is now only worth 80 cents. That is why people can't afford things. This inflation caused by massive deficit spending--this is the stealth tax on every American. It is a very regressive tax.…”