David Obey: “this is not an accounting debate, this is a debate about the future of this country. I believe that every American ought…”

“this is not an accounting debate, this is a debate about the future of this country. I believe that every American ought to get a tax cut, and the kind of tax cut that I favor is one that will not eat up so much of the surpluses that there is nothing on the table to strengthen Social Security or Medicare or strengthen schools or pay for a prescription drug benefit or fill in the gaps in health care and pay down debt. That is why I believe that there should be no tax bill on this floor until we have a full, complete budget so we can see the entire game plan. For this Congress to proceed with taxes alone before they have the other pieces on the basis of promises about what will happen to the economy 10 years from now is as irresponsible as the action that this Congress took in 1981. In 1981, this Congress roared through President Reagan's budget and said ``If you pass that big tax cut, we will have a balanced budget in 4 years.'' This chart demonstrates, the green bar shows the promises and the red bar shows the results. Instead of getting to a surplus, we wound up with $600 billion of added debt in those 4 years, and over the next 10 years we more than quadrupled the national debt. Mr. Speaker, that is the route we are heading down again if you pass this bill. Fooled me once, shame on you. Fall for it twice, shame on me. Fall for it four times, please, bring on the adult supervision!”