Political Quotes

“I have listened to the critics of this legislation. What would they have us do? They would have us do nothing. What they offer is one-half of this bill, in the hopes that that might do it. We tried that. I say to the critics of the bill that we tried their tax cuts last year under President Bush, and they didn't work. We tried their TARP under President Bush, and it didn't work as well as we had hoped. Now we are asking for a chance. This President, President Obama, inherited the worst economic crisis in 75 years. He is showing leadership, and he came with a solution and offered it to the Republicans and said sit down with us, work with us together. Only three Republicans out of all those elected on Capitol Hill would do so. This President made direct overtures to bring in Republicans, to try to find a solution to these problems, and they refused to do so. Many of the same Republicans--not the Senator from Arizona--who have spoken earlier supported amendments to this, adding to the cost of this package $70 billion in the Finance Committee, up to $30 billion on the floor; and after their amendments were adopted, they said, of course, we cannot vote for the bill because it costs too much--after they added some $100 billion in costs to the bill. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot ask us, as Democrats, to stand with President Bush when he tried to solve it and then walk out the door when we face this crisis under President Obama.”