Sam Brownback

Our economy is in the midst of a serious recession and many Americans are suffering from job losses, home losses, and uncertainty about their retirement savings, their jobs, and their children's future.

I get from my banks all the time that the regulators are on them way too much with the capital that they have.

I appreciated very much, your presentation on 60 Minutes recently and the assuring sense that you put in front of the public.

The policy of 'too big to fail' has failed and that we need to get in a regularized system for our big banks.

I do have a quick statement that I wanted to make, and I will have my full statement put into the record.

I am concerned about overreach by the administration on expanding the size of government and setting up costly and most likely inefficient programs.

One of the things I get asked by a number of people is concern about foreign purchases of our debt, and that we are very dependent upon that particularly from the Chinese.

They are saying it is particularly harmful on commercial real estate, and that is the very weak part that you were noting in the economy now anyway.

I am very much in favor of taking strong steps to end 'too big to fail,' and I have given a number of speeches on that subject.

Do you have a thought on considering tax increases at the present time by the Congress?

I am sure you have concerns about that. Are there signals that you are looking at and considering as to whether or not this is occurring or is not occurring on a government debt bubble?

Taxes on anyone earning over $250,000, including someone running a small business, will go up.

The group we had in last week said we do have the tools to deal with this now.

With the Administration's budget outline, we are adding trillions of deficit-financed Federal government spending, which adds trillions to our Nation's debt.

Every time you turn on the light switch, you will pay a tax.

I hope you really watch this, and I am certain you will because these numbers are gargantuan and you know they are gargantuan.

Given the severity of the economic downturn that we face, and efforts already under way to try to offset the downturn, it is absolutely clear to me that the last things we want to do is raise taxes and add uncertainty to the economic and…

With the strong support of President Obama, I believe we can pass this bill and get working Americans some relief from mounting pocketbook pressures.

It really looks like, to me, we are creating a government bubble.

Our budget is fundamentally about priorities and I applaud the President for working with Congress to craft a blueprint that builds on our recovery efforts.

It wouldn't seem wise to continue that level of spending for another year if you are pulling out of this.

I was pleased to read this morning's paper, a number of people were saying, okay, I see some silver linings in this.

I am just beside myself on what has happened. I mean, they've launched a multistage missile.

I look at this and I think, 'This is exactly the wrong message we should be sending.'

I think we probably need to institutionalize some of that.