Paul Ryan: “Two weeks after the President came right behind the gentleman there and gave the State of the Union address last year…”

“Two weeks after the President came right behind the gentleman there and gave the State of the Union address last year, where he talked about how we are going to use the government surplus, he went to Buffalo, New York, and talked to a packed crowd of tens of thousands of people. He said, with respect to the government surplus, the people's surplus, he said, quote, ``We could give you your money back, but we would not be sure that you would spend it right,'' end quote. Well, therein lies the philosophy. The people's money is spent right, so long as they spend their own money. The belief here in Washington, shared by President Clinton and Vice President Gore, is that we here in Washington know how to spend the people's money better than they do. There is a different school of thought; there is a different philosophy which we share that people know how to spend their own money better. People know how to take care of their children, their grandparents, their parents much better than some distant bureaucrats in Washington do.”