Former NBC News President Michael Gartner in USA Today, January 17, 1995:

It sure is exciting to think about that balanced budget everyone wants... it's exciting—until you wonder how it will affect you and your family and your neighbors and your town. Then, it's scary. For that big government that everyone is complaining about finances and awful lot of important things.... Without it, a lot of poor children wouldn't have breakfasts. A lot of professors wouldn't have grants. A lot of needy people wouldn't have medical care—or food....

What Congress should do, of course, is raise taxes. It obviously won't, though, so budget-balancers are left with no choice but to shrink many services my neighbors and I have come to rely on.... We might ask: is big government really bad? Is Newt Gingrich really good?

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