Political Quotes

“we are now beginning a debate over the President's budget proposal for 1997 and for succeeding years. In a very real sense, the fact that we are debating this proposal represents a major step forward from the situation in which we found ourselves last year. As my friend, the Senator from Nebraska, has pointed out, last year it was members of the Republican Party who put up the President's budget to be voted on and voted down. Members of his own party were not willing, systematically, to defend that budget. Because, Mr. President, as you will remember, last year the debate was fixed very firmly on the proposition that one side, the new Republican majority, felt it vitally important not only to promise a balanced budget at some time in the future, but to make the very difficult policy decisions that were required to assure that the budget was, in fact, balanced. We succeeded in doing so. We succeeded in doing so so well that during the entire period of time in which it looked as though this promise would be kept, interest rates declined all across the country. What did that mean? It meant that people buying homes paid less in the way of interest on their mortgages and therefore were more likely to be able to afford to buy a home or to buy a better home.”