Joe Lieberman: “I do want to go back to the fiscal stimulus and put it in the context of where we are now. America is a nation at war.…”

“I do want to go back to the fiscal stimulus and put it in the context of where we are now. America is a nation at war. It is a war that challenges our values and our security as fundamentally as the great wars we fought in the last century against Nazism and communism. So a war of this kind naturally affects most everything else we do in ways that we may not yet see in America. That includes the ways we in Congress conduct our business. It is a time to put national interests ahead of narrow partisan or ideological agendas. But when there are important disagreements, we cannot sweep them under the rug. After all, democracy, in all its fractious glory, is one of the most fundamental values that unites us. It is a value that we are fighting to defend in the current war against terrorism. The moment we stop practicing democracy is the moment we start giving in to the terrorists. It is in that spirit that I wish to speak today--not negatively, but constructively, and not divisively, but I hope in a spirit of what I take to be the national interest. I want to speak in disagreement with the fiscal stimulus plan passed by the House of Representatives, which is really a House Republican plan passed almost entirely on partisan grounds.”