Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to be recognized to address you here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. I have a number of things that I would like to bring to your attention that are on my mind and I think are on the minds of the American people. The number one topic in this Capitol Building, at least on the House side right now--and I believe on the Senate side, too--is the question of the debt ceiling that has been brought forward. A lot of us have some memories of how difficult that was the last time that came through. There are a good number of Members in this Congress that have pledged they will never vote to increase the debt ceiling. We have a President who used extraordinary methods the last time and stretched the debt ceiling out and the crunch time that was supposed to come for months. And it is curious that even though the Congress did backfill that debt ceiling for him, now he doesn't have any extraordinary means, evidently, and now we are up against the time line, up against the wall of perhaps a February 15 date. It causes this Congress to have to scramble. It is not because this government is in risk of default, Mr. Speaker. That is the language that emerged 2 or 3 years ago on the debt ceiling. Republicans and Democrats alike talked about how this country's credit is good and we can't allow our government to default. The definition of default really isn't what has been used in this dialogue over the debt ceiling.…”