Sharice Davids Quotes


Congress must do what we said we would and find ways to pay for bills we propose so we don't leave future generations mired in debt.


Citations

Davids, Sharice. "Davids Statement on Budget Deal." Representative Sharice Davids, U.S. House of Representatives, 25 Jul. 2019.

Related Quotes

At the time, many conservatives were threatening not to increase the debt ceiling unless they could get their way on the budget negotiations which would come up later. The Congress had earlier actually committed to spend the amounts when they voted the appropriations that enabled the spending and increasing the debt. Most countries do not have this second stage in that there is nothing the Congress can possibly do to change get back the money that they already voted to be spent, and the process of raising the debt ceiling must be done else the “full faith and credit” of the United States.


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,


An unusual feature of the American governmental budgeting process is that Congress has passed a law limiting the amount of debt that the United States can maintain. When there is deficit financing, the law limiting the debt has to be changed periodically as the nation approaches the debt limit. Partisan politicians often take advantage of the fact that the debt limit must be passed and hold the passage hostage to obtaining something they want. The reality is that when Congress passed the previous budgets, they determined what the debt would have to be later. So they have already voted to exceed the budget ceiling. But the requirement of doing it in a second forum allows more pressure to be placed on the administration and the other party’s Congress members. While this process is ongoing, many people in the world are worried and often terrorized by the prospect of the debt ceiling not being passed, in which case the United States would have to default on its obligations—not pay interest, contractors, retirements, salaries, etc. Hence the admonition that the debt ceiling should never be a part of the budget negotiating process by most responsible statesmen and women. But the mist partisan of the politicians want to play politics with the debt ceiling precisely because the stakes are so high and they can get both headlines and leverage.


Sharice Davids
Sharice Davids
  • Born: May 22, 1980
  • Nationality: American
  • Profession: Politician

Sharice Lynnette Davids is an American attorney, former mixed martial artist, and politician serving as the U.S. Representative from Kansas's 3rd congressional district since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she represents a district that includes most of the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, including cities such as Kansas City, Overland Park, Prairie Village, Leawood, Lenexa, as well as Olathe.