Political Quotes

“Madam President, since I first came to the Congress back in 1997 as a freshman Member of the House of Representatives, I have been talking about spending and debt and deficits, and that was a key, central element of my campaign for my first election to the House of Representatives way back in the day. Of course, at that time the numbers were a lot less daunting than they are today. If we just look at even where we were 15 years ago in relative terms, the point at which we find ourselves today is almost overwhelming. The debt now is over $14 trillion. We are being asked to raise the debt ceiling even further. I would argue we can no longer afford to put these hard decisions off because these are serious times and these call for serious solutions and serious leadership. I hope we are up to that task. For a long time we thought debts and spending and deficits and all those sorts of things could be acceptable up to a certain level, and I suppose to some degree that is true. Historically, if we look at our country in terms of revenue and spending, over time we have consistently had a certain amount of debt that we carried. But I think by any stretch, any American, any economist, anybody who watches this closely has to recognize the situation in which we find ourselves today is unprecedented in American history and cries out for action-- immediate action and bold action.…”