On the recordOctober 2, 2002
I am proud of the work of my colleagues who have worked together on a bipartisan basis to balance the budget for the first time in a generation. One of the first votes that I had the privilege of casting when I came in 1996 was to start the process of balancing the budget. That Balanced Budget Act finally stopped the flow of red ink that was piling up trillions of dollars in national debt. In fact, when we balanced the budget, we not only did it for one year, but we have put the Nation on course to generate huge budget surpluses for years to come. Those surpluses presented us with a golden opportunity to begin to pay off the national debt, shore up Social Security, strengthen Medicare with the benefit for prescription medicine for our seniors, and invest in the education of our children and our Nation's long-term economic growth. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in this Congress did not decide to do that.
Source
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