John Thune: “when I came to Congress a little over 4 years ago, I came here with some very specific objectives in mind as well. And…”

“when I came to Congress a little over 4 years ago, I came here with some very specific objectives in mind as well. And since coming to Congress, we have achieved a lot of the things that I sought to do in working with the House and our brethren in the Senate and the administration. For the 4th year in row we have balanced the Federal budget. We are actually paying down the publicly held debt. We have done that. This year it will be over $600 billion. We have protected Social Security and Medicare. We cut taxes back in 1997, something that had not happened in a very long time. In fact, the truth is the budget being balanced for the first time 4 years ago was the first time since 1969 when I was 8 years old. All my formative years all I heard about was deficits, deficits, deficits. And so finally we have gotten the fiscal house in order here in the United States Congress. It is sort of ironic that our colleagues on the other side under whose stewardship the debt ballooned and spending ballooned now have this new-found sense of fiscal responsibility...”