Mark Neumann: “I rise tonight to encourage my colleagues to take a deep breath and slow down, because things are happening very, very…”

“I rise tonight to encourage my colleagues to take a deep breath and slow down, because things are happening very, very fast out here. When things start happening very, very fast in Washington, D.C., what happens is we lose track and we lose sight of what is going on; and the next thing you know, the taxpayers' money starts disappearing like it has done for a generation out here, and it starts disappearing very, very fast. When this gets out of control, when spending gets out of control in this city, when we forget what had happened before 1995, we quickly get to a point where the idea of reducing taxes or paying off debt or restoring Social Security become impossibilities. So I rise tonight, and I have not done this presentation in quite some time, but I think it is important, I think it is very important that we remember where it is we are at in this Nation; and that, even though we have come a long way, we have still got some problems facing our country. This first chart that I brought with me tonight shows that the debt from 1960 to 1980 did not grow very much. But from 1980 forward, this debt has grown right off the wall. Although we made some good progress on it, now we need to remember that, even when we get to a balanced budget, we are here in this picture, and it is still a very, very, very serious problem facing our Nation.”