RWN’s Favorite Quotes From Joe Scarborough’s ‘Rome Wasn’t Burnt In A Day’

“(B)ecause Republicans and Democrats conspire to gerrymander one another’s districts so incumbents are rarely challenged at the polls, the turnover rate on Capitol Hill is lower than in the old Soviet Politboro. This means reckless politicians rarely have to pay the price for their misdeeds.” — P. 6

“Party leaders, like the mob, give no credit to those who show loyalty to the family only 90 percent of the time”. — P. 9

“The equation is simple. A centralized state’s growth is fed by the money and personal freedoms of individual Americans. The more you are taxed, the more money the federal government accrues. The more money the federal government has, the more power it has. The more power it has, the less power you have.” — P. 10

“Democrats and Republicans huff and sneer for the camera but are usually on the same side when it’s time to spend your money” — P. 11

“(T)he real Deal is that Clinton and the Republican Congress were only able to balance their budget because IRS agents collected trillions of dollars in new revenue from American businesses. This new revenue wasn’t generated because of Democratic tax increases or Republican spending cuts; it was due to fraudulent booms in the internet and telecom sectors that were fueled by Wall Street whores and corrupt accounting giants.” — P. 23-24

“Few serious political commentators would ever dare suggest that a Democratic-run Congress would spend less money that Republicans…But most Democrats don’t get elected to the White House or Congress by promising to cut spending and taxes while balancing the budget. The fact that Republicans do make this promise every two years makes their bankrupting of America all the more offensive.” — P. 27

“When comparing its fiscal record to that of the Clinton administration, George W. Bush’s White House loses in a landslide. This assessment comes from a former congressman whose animosity for Bill Clinton was so deep that when voters asked why I was running for office I would simply answer “Bill Clinton”.

“After one particularly animated performance (on TV), a White House aide who ran into me on Capitol Hill the next day said, “Hey Congressman, how about taking it easy on my boss.” I laughed and said, “I’m sure the President doesn’t even watch those shows or know my name. If he did, he’d hate my guts, but he doesn’t.” Clinton’s aide stared right back at me and said, “Joe, the president does know your name and he does hate your guts.” — P. 28

“While it is true that Bill Clinton had to be dragged kicking and screaming to budget talks to cut federal spending, the truth is that Republicans reined in wasteful spending more effectively under a Democratic president than they do today under one of their own.” — P. 28

“Not so long ago — in 1995, to be exact — Republicans were so hell-bent on balancing the budget that we fought to amend the United States Constitution with a Balanced Budget Amendment.” — P. 31

“Ten years after taking control of Congress, the Republican Party’s governing doctrine morphed from: ‘The government that governs least governs best’ to ‘The government that’s run by Republicans governs best. End of conversation.’ — P. 32

“For years after that first election, aspiring politicians would come to my office in Washington asking how an unknown thirty-year-old started a congressional campaign with no money, no support, and no hope of winning — but somehow did manage to win. They never seemed to care for my answer. “Here’s the secret,” I whispered as they leaned across my desk. “Get up earlier than everyone. Go to sleep later. Work harder in between, and spend your four hours asleep dreaming up new ways to win votes.” — P. 41

“We (the freshman class of 94) wanted to abolish the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, the Commerce Department, and the Department for Housing and Urban Development. Some even wanted to get the United Nations out of the United States, tear down the building, and salt the earth to ensure no diplomat could ever live there again. I supported all such proposals and more just for the sake of consistency.” — P. 46

“I first experienced how D.C. politicians placed their manhood in a blind trust during the Clinton impeachment ordeal. Every morning Democratic congressmen would sit around the House gym complaining about what a “degenerate” and “liar” Bill Clinton was. That grousing would continue in the House dining room, on the floor of Congress, and well into the evening at Capitol Hill restaurants. But every time the microphone was turned on in the House well or in the television gallery or in the Speaker’s lobby where a gaggle of reporters was always waiting, these same Democratic congressmen would bravely defend their beloved president against mean-spirited attacks from Republicans.” — P. 60

“If Congress stopped paying farmers not to plant their crops, they would be forced to…well, plant their crops. Supply would rise and your cost at the grocery store would go down. But instead, this little Socialist scheme costs consumers billions of dollars.” — P. 86

“Lobbyists are not dumb and they rarely waste their money. They place only the most calculated bets on members and votes they are sure will play out in their favor. The fact that these lobbyists dumped a pile of checks on me after I told them I would vote against their bill, and then called back shocked that I did indeed vote against their bill, leads me to only one conclusion: Their experiences taught them with a high degree of certainty that members of Congress and the Senate could be bought off.” — P. 89

“To restate the obvious, Democrats love spending your tax dollars as much or more than Republicans. The only difference is that Democrats usually spend their campaigns flaunting their promise to waste trillions of tax dollars while Republicans hold firm that they will fight those big, bad, liberals and end Washington’s wasteful ways. Then after the election, the winner — regardless of party — will feed at the public trough while leaving American taxpayers with the bill.” — P. 103

“My experience in Washington has taught me that one-party rule can be a dangerous thing. The system of checks and balances installed by our founding fathers atrophies when a powerful president and his Capitol Hill allies have no political incentive to hold each other accountable.” — P. 151

“Republicans cheering wildly for their team should not fool themselves into believing their agenda is consistent with the values of the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan. It is not. In fact, the most recent fleecing of America is a betrayal of everything the Republican Party has been saying about fiscal discipline since Reagan burst onto the national stage with his memorably 1964 endorsement of Goldwater.” — P. 157

“Since the Great Depression, agriculture has been subject to a complex web of centralized regulations, price controls, quotas, and subsidies. The cost to the American taxpayers lost efficiency and direct giveaways totals billions of dollars. It is a socialized agricultural system in certain regards equal of Joe Stalin’s five year plans — minus the forced starvation and slaughter of 30 million or so peasants.” — P. 162

“In the last election (2002), only four outsiders in the entire country defeated a sitting member of the House of Representatives. That means the other 431 breezed to re-election. Those numbers highlight just how sick our political system is, especially when you consider that the old Soviet Union had a higher turnover in their Politburo than America has in Congress.” — P. 164

“During the 2002 election cycle, the candidate who spent the most money won 90 percent of the time.” — P. 167

“The CATO Institute found that the longer a member served in Congress, the less likely he or she was to support spending cuts. Examining the 104th and 105th Congress, CATO discovered junior Republicans were ‘more than twice as likely to vote for spending or tax cuts as senior Republicans.” — P. 178

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