Political Quotes

“But the real question is why do we say we need a budget, a universe within which to work on these competing interests, whether it be paying down debt, tax cuts, increased spending for the military. The reason that we do is because we want to do the right thing for the children of this country in terms of fiscal discipline. As the gentleman from Mississippi said, if we do not get a handle on this now, we will be the first generations of Americans to actually leave this country worse than when we found it. So why do we say we need a budget first? First of all, we want to protect the trust funds that the gentleman from Mississippi talked about. Those are solemn promises and all we have to give to back them up right now are IOUs. The second thing we think we ought to do and we must do is pay down the national debt. Why is paying down the national debt important? There are 280 million people in this country. We have a total debt, according to the government, of $5.7 trillion, thereabouts. {time} 2230 Of that, $3.4 trillion is publicly held debt.”