Paul S. Sarbanes: “Mr. Secretary, I want to commend you for undertaking this very difficult, complex, and obviously controversial task of…”

put us on the glide path to dissipate this hard-earned fiscal restraint.

In my view, this is a very shortsighted approach, both as a matter of policy and negotiating tactics.

I mean, something's wrong with the set of policies we're pursuing, it seems to me, if we're going to have the kind of erosion in the trade balance that we have seen.

This was a decision by the Bank of Japan, the Government, not by private Japanese investors about the strength of the American economy.