Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator for his comments. I don't get invited many places to speak because I talk about what the Senator has been talking about. It depresses people, but it is about time we got depressed over the budget and made some changes. I appreciate everybody on the committee and those who are not on the committee who have been working to solve this problem. I know that most of you ran on getting a balanced budget, getting to a balanced budget, balancing it now if we could. I get real frustrated because I know we are $20 trillion in debt and heading to $29 trillion. Then I hear people say: Yes, but we cut the deficit in half. That is not the debt. I don't like the word ``deficit.'' I call it overspending. That is what we are doing. We just got the report that we are going to be $590 billion overspent this year. As Senator Lankford pointed out, 70 percent of the budget is on autopilot. So that 30 percent that we get to make a decision on is $1,070 billion. We have to worry a little bit because interest rates might go up. But on $20 trillion, if it is 1 percent, that is $200 billion a year that we are throwing into a rat hole. But if that goes to 5 percent, which is the norm for the Federal Government, we are out $1,000 billion a year in interest. Let's see. We get to make decisions on a $1,070 billion and $1,000 billion of that would go to interest. We better solve this pretty quick. I think we could be at 5 percent within 3 years.…”