Orrin Hatch: “I am not particularly picking on Presidents today. I am picking on us. The President can propose but we dispose. We are…”

“I am not particularly picking on Presidents today. I am picking on us. The President can propose but we dispose. We are the ones who create these appropriations bills and these budget bills. We are the ones who have done the spending. We are the ones who have failed to get entitlement spending under control. We are the ones who have failed to reform Medicaid and Medicare that are going into bankruptcy. All money bills have to originate in the House of Representatives, and during all of the Reagan years the House of Representatives was controlled primarily by those of the liberal persuasion, in both parties I might add. I suspect you could say the Senate was, also, if you added up the liberals versus moderates and conservatives. I think there were more liberals in almost every year of the Reagan administration in both Houses of Congress. Frankly, I am not going to blame President Reagan. I am not going to blame President Bush. I am not going to blame President Clinton or President Carter. I might go back to President Johnson and say there were some problems there.”