Political Quotes

“there are moments in the Senate that are memorable, but the most memorable moment for me in the last several months occurred in the conference room of Speaker Nancy Pelosi when we were called in, Democrats and Republicans, House and Senate leaders, and sat around a large conference table facing the Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, and the head of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. They opened the meeting by saying that America is facing an economic crisis that no one in this room has ever seen, which will spin out of control, reaching across the world, creating economic consequences you cannot even envision, unless we act and act now. You could have heard a pin drop in that room. They said we need hundreds of billions of dollars to put into the banking system for credit, and we have to do it as quickly as possible or you are going to see major corporations in America fail, thousands of jobs lost, and an economic recession bordering on a recession. The choice was clear at the end of the day. In light of that circumstance and the clear failure of these major institutions, we had two choices: do something or do nothing. I chose to do something. I voted for this TARP plan--a strong bipartisan vote, Democrats and Republicans--and said we have to do something, we can't let this happen to our economy and businesses and let families and individuals suffer for a long time to come. We put in conditions and said: We will split it.…”