Joe Barton: “Well, it was not quite that far back, but in 1964, we spent at the Federal level $118.5 billion. To put that into…”

“Well, it was not quite that far back, but in 1964, we spent at the Federal level $118.5 billion. To put that into perspective, last year we spent over $200 billion just to pay interest on the national debt. But in 1964, the entire Federal budget was $118.5 billion. In 1965, while I was a senior at West Junior High School in Waco, TX, playing on the football team and going on my first date and watching the Untouchables on television, things like this, the Federal Government actually spent less money than the year before, $118.2 billion. So we went down $300 million that year. That is the last year that federal spending has decreased from the previous year. In each year since then, 1966, 1967, 1968, all the way down to the current date, Federal spending has increased. Would the gentleman from New York care to hazard a guess as to the first year the Federal Government spent more than $200 billion?”