Political Quotes

“Perhaps it is inherent in the institution itself, in the forces at play, that have made Congress uniquely vulnerable to this kind of massive deficit spending. Whatever the reason, we know Congress is not willing, is not able, or at least in recent years has not been inclined except in rare, unusual circumstances to balance its own budget. That being the case, we cannot assume that Congress will all of a sudden start doing its job, as those who have used this argument have insisted. Part of Congress's job, as Congress has come to perceive it, is to engage in deficit spending. One of Congress's powers, as Members of Congress who read the Constitution will point out, is to borrow money on the credit of the United States. So it is not enough to simply tell Congress to do its job because it has regarded this kind of massive deficit as consistent with that mandate, consistent with that injunction. Meanwhile, Congress is continuing to occupy a larger and larger share of the American economy. We have to remember that for the first 150 years or so of our Republic's existence, we were spending between 1 percent and 4 percent of gross domestic product at the Federal national level, with only two brief exceptions--once during the Civil War and once during and then the immediate aftermath of World War I. But that all started to change in the 1930s when we broke into double digits for the first time ever during peacetime. We have never really gone back.…”