Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank the Senator for bringing this issue and timely discussion to the floor. We had a meeting today of the deficit commission--18 of us who have been charged with finding a way to deal with our Nation's deficit. Speaking to us was the Director of the CBO, Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Elmendorf, who talked about what we need to do. I asked him a question that went directly to the Senator's point: As we talk about reducing the deficit, isn't there a worry or concern that if we hit the brakes too soon, we can plunge even deeper into a recession, with more people out of work? He said yes. He said that you have to make sure we start moving forward, putting people to work, with the GDP growing; and once you have the economy stabilized and moving forward, with people paying taxes--which, incidentally, brings down the deficit--then you can talk about the long-term deficit fix. So I say to the Senator from Iowa, he really hit the nail on the head. Our colleagues on the other side who refuse to support extending unemployment compensation benefits say: We want to take it from some other area of spending. Well, of course, that just reduces the stimulus to the American economy. So they are not helping things. What we need to do is help them. I see the Senator from Iowa has 3,700 workers in Iowa affected by this. We have over 10,000 in the State of Illinois. In fact, it is 20,000 at this point. It will be 80,000 by the end of June, if I am not mistaken.…”