Spending Quotes
At the time, the George W. Bush Administration policy was to have the United States running a very large trade and budget deficit—the largest in the history of the world. In order to finance the deficit, the U. S. Government had to borrow money and it did so by selling bonds and other financial instruments. Many of these were purchased by Asians, but Paul’s point was that they were “propping up” American spending habits and might not continue to do so.
This is the kind of advice that Presidents have given the Congress for years. What makes this quotation noteworthy is the person who made the statement, President George W. Bush. It was made in the 7th year of his Presidency which had in those 7 years, at his urging, gone from a balanced budget and a national surplus projected, to the largest deficit of any nation in history and a projected deficit that even dwarfed that. So the irony of the quotation was that the politician who produced the largest economic burden on future generations was lecturing other politicians on the evils of doing exactly what he himself had been doing. Bush, if nothing else, was one of the most audacious politicians in this respect, though his most severe detractors claim that he did not have the intellectual perspective to even understand the hypocrisy of his quotation,
This quotation is attributed to the Senator by hundreds of sources, many very relaiable. This indicates to us that it was a line he used on several occasions. However the Dirksen Center staff has not been able to find the quotation amongst his writings and his radio and television appearances that they have transcripts for.
She was very extravagant in her living style at a time when the country was in deep financial straights. Resentment of this was one of the causes of the French Revolution.
