Political Quotes

“President Obama, being interviewed on ABC by George Stephanopoulos, not only said ``my goal is not to chase-- a balanced budget'' but he also said, ``we don't have an immediate crisis in terms of debt,'' and ``in fact, for the next 10 years, it's gonna be in a sustainable place.'' I would say two things about that. He appointed Mr. Erskine Bowles to be chairman of the fiscal commission. They spent quite a lot of time working on this debt question. They took testimony from experts, they examined documents, and they did what a good, public, spirited group would do. Mr. Bowles was Chief of Staff for President Clinton and a very successful businessman. Alan Simpson, his Cochair, was a former Republican Senator from Wyoming. That is not what they told us. In the committee, 2 years ago, in the Budget Committee--maybe a little over 2 years now--they gave a joint statement in which they said this Nation has never faced a more predictable financial crisis. What they were saying was the level of debt we are operating on, the unsustainability of the debt path, was so great that we will have some sort of fiscal crisis. I remember about that same time, the Chairman of the Fed, Mr. Bernanke, testified that we have all these outyears and we talk about the debt numbers and all that, but we don't have to worry about them. I am paraphrasing, but this was pretty close to what he said. I think these were his exact words: But it will never happen.…”