Political Quotes

“responding to my colleague and friend from Missouri, she is absolutely correct. I think there is a tendency to look at these issues as if they were somehow stovepiped, separate from each other, this dealing with the TARP legislation and dealing with the financial crisis and now dealing with the stimulus package is unrelated. It has been pointed out that there is a likelihood we will lose as much as $2 trillion out of our economy over the next 2 years. Making up that gap is going to require some effort. This bill will ultimately, I hope, result in an appropriation of something between $800 billion and $900 billion--no small amount but far short of what will be lost in our economy over the next 2 years. If we defeat this or shelve this, as has been suggested, we exacerbate the economic problems of this Nation to a significant degree, which would require this body coming back at a later date with something that none of us even wants to contemplate at this point. So this is not an unrelated matter. You shelve this, you walk away from this responsibility, and you burden the American taxpayer to the likes none of us could even begin to calculate. So I thank my colleague from Missouri for pointing that fact out. This is related. If our economy does not begin to improve or at least not get worse, as the President has accurately pointed out, the problems only become more pronounced, more difficult to resolve in the coming weeks and months.”