Thomas Daschle: “It was so hard that there are some colleagues who are no longer here because they paid the price. Before we could see…”

“It was so hard that there are some colleagues who are no longer here because they paid the price. Before we could see the results, of course, there were some across the country who made a judgment about the prudence of their very difficult decisions in 1993 and chose not to send them back to Washington. They paid the ultimate political price so we could enjoy the fiscal glory we are enjoying today. I can recall so vividly talking to some of my colleagues who, up until the very last moment, weighed whether this was the right thing to do. Only in the last few moments they made the decision to take the chance. But this was in the face of tremendous opposition, vocal opposition from the other side, projecting recessions and unemployment and extraordinary fiscal repercussions that we would feel for perhaps the rest of our professional lives. There were warnings, extraordinary in their scope and depth and visceral disgust, for what we were attempting to do. It was an overpowering moment, to see the Vice President cast that tie-breaking vote to give us the opportunity to put this budget on the fiscal path, a moment that we now look back on with great pride. What remarkable opportunities it presented. Twenty million new jobs--how do you put a value on that? We have an economy that has taken the stock market to heights we never dreamed.…”