Political Quotes

“this Nation is facing a debt crisis. That is fully understood by the American people and experts all over. Our total debt is now in excess of $17 trillion. The Budget Control Act of 2011 was an important step in reining in some of our spending. It reduced the growth of spending from 2012 to 2022 by $2.1 trillion. That was the agreement. We raised the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion, but we promised the American people we would restrain spending over the next decade by that amount. The spending baseline for America, as calculated at that time by the Congressional Budget Office was expected to see spending increase by $10 trillion over the next 10 years over current levels. The Budget Control Act, which included the sequester, was to limit that growth to $8 trillion instead $10 trillion. I wanted to reduce the growth of spending more than that, but the BCA levels did provide a cap on spending that was approved by President Obama, passed by both Houses of Congress, and signed into law by President Obama. This year, fiscal year 2014, was the toughest year in terms of being able to meet the goals of the 10 years under the BCA and, therefore, we blinked, I would say, and there arose the Murray-Ryan bipartisan legislation, written not with our Budget Committee members but by these two leaders. They agreed we would spend $64 billion more than the BCA allowed. This was a bitter pill for me, I have to say.…”