Political Quotes

“The supporters of this legislation have spoken at length about how nice it would be to balance the budget and how dangerous deficits are. The speeches, there are great speeches about the budget, but the one thing they have not talked about is how the provisions of this legislation will actually help balance the budget. Now, we had a hearing earlier this month where the former Governor of Pennsylvania talked about the Pennsylvania balanced budget amendment and how their constitutional provision was such a good thing; but he had to acknowledge that other than the title, there is nothing in H.J. Res. 2 that can be found in the Pennsylvania Constitution. We also found that the gentleman from Arizona had to acknowledge, after he talked about how good the balanced budget amendment works in Arizona, that Arizona was able to balance its budget only because federally borrowed stimulus money provided $6 billion to Arizona; $1,000 for every man, woman, and child in that State. And that wasn't enough. Arizona had to sell their State capitol and supreme court building. That's right, sold their State capitol and supreme court building and leased it back in order to achieve about a billion dollars worth of cash needed that year. So we should be looking at the provisions of the legislation, not just talking about how nice it is to balance the budget. One of the provisions is a three-fifths vote to increase the debt ceiling.…”