Political Quotes

“Mr. President, our Nation has an over $14 trillion debt and unless we can get a handle on it--I have a chart which I think shows what our future will look like if we stay on the current trajectory. You can see that the path leads higher and higher in debt to GDP levels. That level is unprecedented in American history. You have to go back to World War II when we had this kind of debt to GDP. The chart shows we are going to face an ever increasing burden and debt. Without shoring up our finances, we know what our future will look like. This week, we saw that the country of Greece had to approve an austerity package to be eligible for their next disbursement of a multibillion dollar bailout loan from the IMF and other European countries. This austerity package included 28.4 billion euros in spending cuts and tax increases. That is exactly what will happen if we don't do anything. We will reach a time when we will be facing massive cuts in spending and tax increases, if we don't get our fiscal house in order. But that isn't necessary, because there is a better way to solve this problem. Instead of more debt and spending, we can pass a balanced budget amendment that would prevent us from spending more than we can take in. We know what the effect of this will be on our future as well. We have States across this country--49--that have some type of balanced budget requirement, including South Dakota. That is the reason why our State's budget is always balanced.…”