Political Quotes

“I thank my good friend for yielding, Mr. Speaker. It seems that, oftentimes around here, there are some people who believe that all government programs are good and are not to be expanded and are to be kept, and there are some who believe that all government programs are bad and that they all ought to be terminated. But you know what? Neither one of those extremes are right. You should look at a program and determine: Is it constitutional? Is it cost- effective? And does it work? The Ex-Im Bank is all three, and I would like to make five points on that. First of all, it is clearly a Federal responsibility to facilitate exports, something clearly enumerated in the Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton. Second of all, in the perfect world, perhaps we wouldn't have to do this. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to have airport security; but we do, for obvious reasons. And we have to have this because lots of other countries do, and we will not be competing on a level playing field and we will lose exports if we don't have this facility available for American companies exporting goods. Third, it hasn't cost the taxpayer any money. It's actually made $3.7 billion for the taxpayer. We're always talking about programs here that cost the taxpayer money. This hasn't, it doesn't, and it won't. And that is something that should be clear. Fourth, there's nothing wrong with big businesses. In America, we normally reward success. We celebrate success. And a big business is successful.…”