Political Quotes

“I do recall that very well. I was sitting on your committee, and you were almost begging the economic leadership of the Bush administration to follow the example that had been laid out by the 41st President of the United States, George H.W. Bush, when he began the system of PAYGO, that President Clinton then incorporated, raised taxes but balanced the budget, and as a result generated more after-tax profit for the wealthiest people of America than had ever been experienced, but provided the next President, George Bush, the 43rd, with this $5.6 trillion projected surplus. A sunny horizon almost as far as the eye could see now has turned into deep deficits, deeper than anything we can imagine and which we see no end for, and it will bring us all of the way to the point you bring up, Mr. Chairman, when the baby boom generation retires and then puts an enormous additional burden on our budget. You asked Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan if he would not impose some fiscal discipline on the administration and asked whether we could really afford the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. As we look back, in retrospect we see the reason that $5.6 trillion surplus that was projected was gone in 3 years. By 2004, that surplus was gone.”