Adam Smith: “I want to follow up on that last point about keeping the economy strong. I came into Congress in 1996. Before that, I…”

“I want to follow up on that last point about keeping the economy strong. I came into Congress in 1996. Before that, I served 6 years in the Washington State senate, so I started there in 1990. I came into the body in the State senate during down economic times, during a time period when our treasury had a $2 billion shortfall; and in the State of Washington, $2 billion is a lot of money. We had to figure out how to deal with that in terms of cutting spending and raising taxes and basically dealing with covering the debts of government. That is a horrible situation to have to deal with as compared to the situation that we are in right now with a strong economy generating strong revenues, so that we can fund programs and hopefully pay down the debt. If we can pay down the debt, if we can be fiscally responsible in a way that keeps the economy moving forward, that will have benefits that spread all across the country and must be a top priority. I want to touch on one other point. Basically, I figure a lot of people might be tuning in and saying, what is a Democrat doing talking about a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility? Well, I feel that I am a member of the new Democratic Caucus, the new Democratic Coalition that is very interested in focusing on issues like fiscal responsibility and paying down the debt.”