Political Quotes

“Mr. President, last week I had the opportunity to travel my State of South Dakota, as I think most Senators did who were home over the break. During the week, I was able to be part of a couple of events in my State with former Comptroller General David Walker. I think most people here are acquainted with Mr. Walker. He had a 10-year run as the Comptroller General of this country. He has since started an organization called the Comeback America Initiative and has been traveling the country trying to explain to the public the issues surrounding our national debt--high Federal spending levels and their effect on our Nation's future. I would add he is someone who takes both parties to task. He is an equal opportunity critic. He is very bipartisan in his criticism of the out-of-control spending that exists in Washington, DC, but he did point out the tremendous growth in government which has occurred in the course of our Nation's history. In fact, when our country was founded, if we go back to the formative years of our country--and he uses the year 1800 as an example--government spending made up just 2 percent of our entire economy. Just 2 percent of our GDP represented government spending. Today, it makes up almost 25 percent, and we are on a trend line, a trajectory, where that will rise to 39 percent by the year 2040. So we have seen this upward spike in the spending, the amount of Federal spending as a percentage of our entire economic output. The reason Mr.…”