Political Quotes

“I will wrap up. I do not want to delay the vote. It will be perfectly appropriate for him to make his remarks at this time. But first, I will point out this chart. Why do we need to contain the reckless growth in spending? This chart shows how much interest we pay on the debt. When we passed a stimulus package of almost $800 billion, we did not have that money. Where did we get it? We borrowed it, and we have to pay interest on it. When we have an emergency, such as Hurricane Katrina--by definition, an emergency is an expenditure for which we do not have the money and it is above our budget. Our budget puts us in deficit. Emergency spending is always deficit funded, funded with borrowed money. In 2009, the interest we paid on our debt was $200 billion. That is the public debt. We have more debt than that. We have internal debt. Under the 10-year proposal President Obama gave us early last year, the Congressional Budget Office concludes that our deficits will surge and that in 10 years, the interest for 1 year would be $799 billion. That is why everybody says we are on an unsustainable path. How do we get off it? Basically, we have to contain our spending. We cannot have $800 billion stimulus packages every year or two. We cannot have spending increases of 10 percent and 12 percent in basic discretionary accounts. If we start taking firm action now, this will not happen. The debt tends to compound. Our deficits tend to compound.…”