Chuck Hagel Quotes
I'm not saying my idea is the one and only idea. We should have other ideas, but the president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency. I do that.
Hagel, Chuck. America: Our Next Chapter: Tough Questions, Straight Answers. Ecco, 2008.
After the Stock Market crash of 1929, Republican politicians promised "recovery is right around the corner." But La Guardia disagreed:
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.
The 2 previous Republican-Controlled Congresses were at loggerheads with the President, determined to pass nothing for which he could take credit. These Congresses had passed fewer bills than any since the creation of our country. There was no way of have any medium or long term planning for any government agencies including the Department of Defense. The result was much money wasted and holes and inadequacies in our national security.
Charles Timothy Hagel is an American military veteran and former politician who served as a United States Senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009 and as the 24th United States secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015 in the Obama administration.
