Sam Brownback

It seems like to me it would be a great time for us to hold a hearing with the regulators, and maybe some of the builders or financial institutions, and quiz them at length.

Well again I think this is the issue really to track for us, is this credit market lockup...

And this is unusual from prior recessions? Typically it is much broader going in?

Could you give us some indication of the numbers in the housing market?

This is precisely the wrong time to raise taxes and inject uncertainty about what taxes are going to be in the future.

The budget that we just currently are considering and passed last night... will ensure that 100 percent of Americans can expect to pay higher taxes in the future.

I was noting--one of the staff members was saying to me that the historical experience has been that the faster and deeper the job losses, the quicker the recovery, has generally been in history.

Every state is experiencing the downturn, but do you have more regionalized impacts?

If you compare that to prior recessions, do you see a similar sort of trend mark?

Do you break this down by region? I know you do state-by-state unemployment numbers. Do you have regions of the country that are being harder hit than other regions?

We need to halt the mad dash to big government as the solution to all of our problems.

I think it is an excellent idea, and I look forward to working with the Ranking Member in putting that together as quickly as possible.

We have been devoting trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to expanding and creating permanent, long-term government spending programs and income redistribution mechanisms.

Are you looking at anything that might happen overseas? Anything that might happen here that you would consider a trip wire to accelerate this into even a worse situation?

This is precisely the wrong time and the wrong message. It is not the time to raise taxes.

This is not the time to raise taxes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.

the budget that we are currently considering, by initiating a move toward socialized health care and taxes on carbon emissions, will ensure that 100% of Americans can expect to pay higher taxes in the future.

What percent of our jobs are based on exports, Commissioner?

most economists agree that the housing market continues to be the primary concern for the economy.

the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has the 'discretion' to allow for the tax credit to be monetized.

I would lift that hold if Hill would promise to include Jay Lefkowitz.

He didn't follow the law. He misled me completely. He was very difficult to deal with. And the six-party talks failed.

NextGen is not a silver bullet.

We can't be normalizing with a country with one of the world's worst human rights records.