Donald Manzullo

The problem is this, you came to a conclusion without them being involved in the process in the first place.

So, you were under the gun and you rushed to judgment on this issue?

It is very simple. Whoever came up with the great idea to allow people who couldn't make the first mortgage payment to buy a house made the mistake.

We just passed the health care bill, the cap-and-trade. Every time we pass these bills, the people in the congressional district that I represent lose more jobs. We don't need help from Congress. We need Congress to leave the people alone.

The President's $1 trillion health care bill is a job-killing disaster that will slap Americans with massive tax increases and Medicare cuts immediately while delaying the bulk of the health care benefits until 2014. This is not health…

And in Illinois, which is already bankrupt. Illinois is the State where five of the past eight Governors have been indicted. It's a great State. They have a lot of ethical problems, you might say. The State's broken. Public employees have…

Well, they may have to pay the tax on the import, but no one knows. If we just throw the tax out and say, well, the tax may apply, even if the tax applies, I say to my good friend from Missouri, the supplier will look at that and say, or…

Well, yeah. I mean, the radiology machine that was used to kill the cancer cells around that particular level that was in her back that had the cancer. And, yet, by increasing the cost of lifesaving devices, has it ever occurred to people…

Well, it is. And then when my wife came down with cancer, and the neurosurgeon implanted into her spine this marvelous titanium brace, to think that that is a medical device and could be subject to a tax. Now--

If the purpose of any health care bill is to bring down the cost of health care, that is, to break the curve, so instead of health care costs going up, they'll at least be stable, if not retreat, then it really defies logic as to why the…

U.S. policy in this part of the world must refocus to the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The Federal Reserve had the authority to do two things that could have stopped this collapse in America.

I do not believe we should start a whole new consumer agency to protect the consumer on financial products.

I found it interesting that some of you there think that you can ask the Federal Government for so much, but in your own wisdom stop it, and then you will be in a position later on, when you're complaining, that the Federal Government went…

So the life insurance side of AIG has always been sound, in terms of--you would have to have all the insureds, life insureds, die in one day or in a week in order to threaten the solvency of the insurance end.

You cannot separate and bifurcate consumer standards, consumer safety standards, from solvency regulation.

Whatever system of regulation that you come up with, you must give companies the ability to fail.

Well, given the size and the systemic risk, like it or not, we need a systemic regulator.

But the real mess has to do with the fact that people bought homes who couldn't afford them in the first place. Isn't that correct?

And I think that is just a lack of foresight on the part of the people who came up with the regulations.

We would not be in this problem, had not people bought homes that they couldn't afford in the first place.

I mean, your rules can purposely devalue a home that somebody is trying to sell because you have so much bureaucracy tied up in it.

It was $700 billion was supposed to buy up the bad assets. They still haven't been bought up.

The Federal Government better think again before it goes in there and devaluates bonds and prefers people in subordinate positions to bond-holders.

If municipalities say it is no longer reliable to invest in U.S. securities, because of the way the Federal Government treats bondholders by taking over companies, firing their executives, that is pretty scary.