Political Quotes

“I think that one other point ought to be made, and that is that on January 1, 1995, our national debt subject to limit was $4.8 trillion. On January 1, 2004, it will be $7.4 trillion. That is an increase of 54 percent in 8 years. That is not a political argument; that is a fact, a demonstrable, proven fact. Now, part two of this motion says, to the maximum extent possible, within the scope of the conference. To me, that means what the Blue Dog plan was that was rejected on the floor, because, to the maximum extent possible, the Blue Dog plan does what we have asked. It neither increases the Federal budget deficit, nor does it increase the amount of debt subject to the public limit. So when one wants to say to the maximum extent possible, we can do that. We could do that by adopting the Blue Dog plan. The other thing I would simply say is this: if we keep going down this road, we are building in such a structural long-term tax increase called interest on the national debt that the young people of this country are going to be unable to have the options and the choices about what kind of government they want when they are our age, because they will be strapped to the gurney with debt and interest that has to be paid on that debt that we are leaving them.”