Political Quotes

“I thank my distinguished colleague, my senior Senator from Utah, Mr. Hatch, for his leadership on the balanced budget amendment over the years. He has been a consistent and stalwart advocate for the cause of amending the Constitution in such a way that restricts Congress's ability to engage in deficit spending. It is the practice of perpetual, reckless deficit spending that has created this almost $15 trillion debt we are now dealing with. It is this practice of perpetual, excessive deficit spending that has fueled the expansion of the Federal Government far beyond the limits the Founding Fathers had in mind and far beyond the natural limits this government can handle. It is important to remember we are now spending through the Federal Government more than 25 percent of our annual GDP. More than one- quarter of every dollar that moves through the American economy is consumed by Washington. This is a problem. This is a problem, and it is, unfortunately, not something that is at all consistent with where we have been historically as Americans. We have to remember that for about the first 140 years of our Republic's existence under the Constitution, our Federal spending was nowhere near this high as a percentage of GDP. Between 1790 and the early 1930s, the Federal Government tended to spend between 1.5 and 4 percent of GDP every single year, year in and year out.…”