Political Quotes

“just to follow up further on the situation we face, I talked earlier about the critical importance of having honest numbers. We can disagree on certain numbers. Mr. Lew predicted that under his budget, last year's deficit in the 10th year would be about $800 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, using the same numbers, the same analysis, says it would be 50 percent higher. They said it would be $1.2 trillion. He was using rosy scenarios. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office came out with greater debt numbers and more danger for America. I am not so much complaining about that, although I think they deliberately tried to make their numbers look rosy. What I am complaining about is a fundamental mischaracterization of the budget he presented and what it would do according to his own analysis contained in the budget documents he submitted with his budget. This is a very important matter. People say: Why don't you get together in Congress? Why don't you all reach an agreement? Well, it is kind of hard to reach an agreement when the lead negotiator for the President, Mr. Lew--some call him Dr. No--goes around saying: We don't need to do anything; our budget we submitted will get us over the next several years to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say, We're not adding to the debt anymore; we're spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our debt.…”