Political Quotes

“Mr. President, our Nation's fiscal situation has reached a tipping point. The debt held by the public now exceeds $9 trillion. We are now in our third year of trillion dollar deficits. According to the Congressional Budget Office, by the end of 2011, our debt will be $10.4 trillion. This represents 69 percent of GDP, the highest level since 1950. The picture only gets uglier if you take into account other factors. Our total public debt outstanding is over $14 trillion. Moreover, if you assume that certain things that always happen will continue to happen things like the AMT patch, tax relief for families and businesses, and a ``doc-fix'' our debt will soon be nearly 100 percent of GDP. This is, quite simply, unsustainable. If we do not act now to get a handle on this spending, the nation that gave boundless opportunity to generations of Americans will not be there for our children and grandchildren. With interest payments on all this debt set to grow from $225 billion in 2011 to $792 billion in 2021, we are approaching a fiscal death spiral. Congress could go a long way simply by reducing wasteful and redundant government spending. Last week, in response to a request from my colleague from Oklahoma, Dr. Coburn, the Government Accountability Office released a report identifying between $100 and $200 billion in wasteful spending on redundant government programs alone. Dr.…”