Political Quotes

“I appreciate the comments of my friend, the Senator from California. We have to be serious about the country's debt. Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the debt is our biggest national security threat. Anyone in my State who looks at what we are spending in Washington is astonished. We are spending, this year, $3.7 trillion. We are collecting $2.2 trillion. The House of Representatives has said: Let's take a step--a serious step--toward dealing with that debt. I applaud them for that. That number is a number that we on the Republican side try to support in the Senate. We might have our own priorities within that reduced number, but we need to get serious about the entire problem of America's debt. It also goes directly to the problem of jobs we have in our country today. The last Democratic Congress and the President's policies have thrown a big wet blanket on private sector job creation in America. One of the biggest parts of the wet blanket is the big debt. According to economists, it costs us 1 million jobs a year. The big debt creates the potential for higher interest rates. That makes it harder to create jobs. It soaks up capital. It could be used to create jobs. It creates uncertainty. It creates a lack of confidence. There is a lot of spirit in this Senate to find a consensus on how to deal with the debt. I want to be one who does that. I look forward to a serious discussion of those efforts.”