Ron Klein

As we've been working on this for the last number of months, in speaking to people at home, to economists, to experts, to businesspeople from the Reagan administration or from the Clinton administration, and to everything in between, I…

The cost per day that the war is costing us, if you will, $339 million per day. That is a staggering amount of money. Now, again, I'm not here to say that we don't have to fight wars, or don't have to do the necessary things to protect…

I certainly call on those in the other body, the Senate, to also think boldly about energy independence and help us pass this bill as fast as possible. When the Senate passes the energy bill, we as Americans urge the President of the…

Our whole country can move together, forward together in such a way that benefits all of us and enhances our national security. So I am looking forward to opening up a whole new economy. The naysayers are saying we can't afford what is…

Thank you, Congressman, and I appreciate, I know you come from the Midwest and obviously dealing at this time of the year with the oil costs for people that have to heat their homes and to drive cars, this is a very serious issue. As we…

I am an eternal optimist, like everyone in the Chamber, Democrats and Republicans. I feel the American people are up to the challenge. We are up to sacrifice. And we're going to do this. And we will convince the administration along the…

A new Apollo Project for energy is really a mission to rebuild our economy. Smart energy policy is, in fact, good economic policy. The two are inextricably intertwined. Done right, solving our crisis of climate change and oil dependence…

The way this is designed is that the loans are structured between the risk catastrophe fund and the Treasury under terms and conditions that are acceptable to the Treasury. Now, if there is a default under those terms and conditions, it's…

There is no money that under this program goes to the State. It goes to the participants of the risk catastrophe funds. Those are independent.

I'm looking back at the amendment. And the point I was trying to make, which I think is pretty clear here, is that it says ``under any loan previously made under this Act or any loan provided by any agency or establishment of the Federal…

I am a true believer, if you give somebody 5 years to do it, it will take 5 years. At the same time I realize from the experience we have had in Florida and many other States that have tried to move forward with building codes and other…

I think the thinking is this is an authorization. It is not an appropriation. The general notion is in the early stage of this thing, it is a relatively small amount of dollars. It creates authorization if necessary. If you have a number…

It's about the rule of law. I mean, every American accepts the fact we're a Nation of laws, we live by the rule of law, and there's nobody that gets excepted from that, whether it's someone who's cleaning an office or whether it's someone…

But clearly we're new Members, and I think that as new Members we probably have heard through some very active campaigns a very clear message from our communities and, that is, what's going on in Iraq, this is back in November, but…

One of the things that Mr. Hodes is pointing out is that the people that we're talking about are working families. We're not talking about necessarily people that aren't working. We're not only talking about what people in this country may…

PAYGO, pay-as-you-go. You can't keep borrowing, you can't keep spending, adding new programs unless there's money in the budget. You can't pretend there's some trickle-down future great thing. If it happens, wonderful, but you know…

The discipline it takes to do this Federal budget, which we're doing right now and I'm really proud we're doing it, is the same discipline that you do with your own family budget. You don't keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing if you…

I was just thinking as you're talking about the economic dream and the responsibility, and one of the things that I heard on the campaign trail over and over and over again, and I just felt that in my own heart as a small businessman, we…

A balanced budget. Every one of our States at the end of the year, we all participated in a balanced budget, for 14 years.

But it goes beyond that. I think there are other ways that we can break this link, and I think some of the discussions going on right now of continuing to do things and disclosure and all those kinds of things are very important in making…

That's right, and there's still unfortunately a few that are still being investigated, and that's going on and that's wrong. It's wrong at home, in any business. It's wrong in any community whether it's done person-to-person, and certainly…

When we went into Iraq in the first place, they were supposed to be able to pay for their entire rebuilding through their own oil revenues. Unfortunately, that has not happened. I know Mr. Perlmutter has been one of our leaders on…

We appreciate your guidance and counsel. As we are listening to many of the things, we are glad to add a new energy to the process here. You can see it here tonight. I want to bring Mr. Ellison back in. He was really making a passionate…

Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. And I think we have heard from some of our friends and we have a lot of others within the Democratic side of the freshmen class. There are 41 of us. It is a big class this year, along with the rest of them…