Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are in the 11th day of the government shutdown. We have caused great harm to the people of this country. We have already caused harm. We have hurt the United States on the international front. The President, as I mentioned previously, was absent at the Asian economic summit. The Asian economic summit was the opportunity for America, the President of the United States, to be the headliner. Instead, the President of China, President Xi, became the headliner. There were questions asked about whether America is ``open for business'' with our trading partners. We have been hurt by this shutdown, make no mistake about it. Our economy has suffered. Just the threat of defaulting--of not paying our bills--has hurt consumer confidence. Consumer confidence measures whether consumers are ready to go out and buy that car, buy that home, go on vacation. After the terrorist attacks on the country on September 11, 2001, consumer confidence dropped by about 8.8 percent. I could go over other calamitous moments in history, but the debt ceiling debate today is about twice as damaging to consumer confidence as the 9/11 attack. We are talking about paying our bills when we talk about raising the debt ceiling--bills that have already been incurred. We are just paying the bills. Mr. President, we are hurting our country. We are hurting our economy. We are wasting taxpayer dollars. We all talk about dealing with the debt.…”