Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, the Congress is concerned about the debt. The people are concerned about the debt. The markets are concerned about the debt. The world is concerned about the debt and what we're doing here today because we live with a world fiat dollar standard, and so the whole world is engulfed in this very serious problem. I do not understand, though, that if the debt is the problem, and I agree, the debt is the problem, that for us to come here and raise the debt by $2.4 trillion is the solution. That just baffles me. I think it's a distraction, because when a country gets indebted to the degree that we're indebted, the country always defaults. This is historic, especially if the country is a significant country. On occasion a small country will quit sending the checks and they'll go bankrupt. We're not going to do that, but we will default because the debt is unsustainable. This year it is said that we have a debt increase of $1.6 trillion, but that's not true. If you count what we borrow from the pension funds, the Social Security and highway funds, it's $2 trillion. But if you include the increase in the entitlement obligation, it's $5 trillion. So this is a huge, huge problem. But the argument here is how do you default. And it is said that if we don't raise the debt limit, we're going to default and not send out the checks. I don't believe that for a minute. Somehow or another the checks are going to go out.…”