John Ensign: “The American people have accused Washington and this Chamber of being far too partisan, and they have been right. But I…”

“The American people have accused Washington and this Chamber of being far too partisan, and they have been right. But I would venture to guess that we can reach a bipartisan agreement on the fact that our economy has taken a major hit over the last few years--a hit that I would argue we have yet to recover from. So here we are, debating another massive bill that is supposed to stave off another economic disaster. But does it do that? I am sure that most here are familiar with the children's tale of the boy who cried wolf far too often. The problem faced by this character was that when there was an emergency--such as the wolf verging on attack--there wasn't anyone around to take that alarm seriously. This is the path we are heading down. The Senate is passing a massive bill, after many other massive bills that we have passed, and expanding the Federal Government to an unsustainable level, all in the name of avoiding another economic downturn. But what we are doing here is setting our country up on a course that we cannot correct and creating unintended consequences that may ultimately rain more economic damage down on the American people.”