Political Quotes

“I certainly agree that defaulting on the debt is an extraordinarily irresponsible thing to do, and, in fact, we shouldn't do it. In fact, we shouldn't use it as a leverage point, in my view, to pretend that somehow going over the debt limit without extension is an acceptable political leverage point for either side. Both sides have sort of blamed the other for the deficits as we've confronted these debt limits. We've never come close, except in August of 2011, to defaulting, which was the first time, as the gentleman knows, when we were downgraded by 1 point by S&P. That's an irresponsible policy. I agree with the gentleman. Let me say that the advantage of a conference on this issue will be that transparently the American public will see the debate. The gentleman indicates a 10-year objective of balancing the budget without revenues. I personally believe that's impossible. I've said on this floor that if there were no Democrats in the Congress of the United States, either in the Senate or the House, that, frankly, your side of the aisle could not pass either the appropriation bills or the revenue bills or tax cuts that are suggested in Mr. Ryan's budget, which would accomplish your objective. I think we'll never know that, which is, I think, a happy circumstance on your side that that will never be put to the test. Having said that, I would hope that we could get to a place where we say the debt limit is not going to be subject to political maneuvering.…”