Susan Collins

An analysis of the Obama administration budget proposal by the Congressional Budget Office projects that the public debt ratio will double in 10 years, to 82 percent of GDP.

The Fed frankly has its hands full.

Ordinary Americans need to know that, if they are wealthy and have a lot of assets... they are not going to get a free pass.

The CBO analysis also shows that the Obama budget will produce a deficit level averaging 5.3 percent of GDP across the 10-year budget window.

I think it's a brilliant idea and needs to be done.

I think there's widespread consensus that we do need to have a systemic risk monitor.

What is the status of efforts to establish an economic stimulus lending program, a secondary market guarantee authority for pools of SBA 504 program first-lien mortgages, and SBA secondary market lending authority to make loans to…

The IRS is in the midst of a significant hiring initiative for enforcement staff as a result of its fiscal year 2009 budget.

I think that the whole issue of leveraging preparers is going to be part of our tax gap strategy.

I know personally how valuable those centers can be in providing advice and guidance, which can be at least as important--well, maybe not as important, but almost as important as money to a new business or a business that is thinking of…

As we all know, small businesses are the backbone of our economy.

We want to have a level playing field, more conservatively set, more evenly enforced across the U.S. financial system.

I introduced a bill in March to create a council of regulators to act as a systemic risk monitor.

This decision has been perplexing to many of the automobile dealers in my State.

Are you looking, as part of your reforms, on combining the OTS with the OCC? That's what my bill does. And needless to say, I think it's a brilliant idea and needs to be done.

I think when Bear Stearns failed, its leverage ratio was an astonishing 30:1.

It troubles me that banks have received billions of dollars without having to demonstrate that they've increased lending.

I am troubled that the President's budget proposes to double the debt in 5 years and triple it in 10.

I would argue that the credit default swaps were more like an insurance product.

Worse, the deficit level will be rising--not shrinking--toward the end of the 10-year period, reaching 5.7 percent in 2019.

I don't see, on the grassroots level, the benefits of putting billions of dollars into financial institutions.

As a result of the hearings that we held, Senator Lieberman and I introduced a bill that directed the CFTC to establish position limits.

We need a system where just because a product is new does not mean that it falls into a regulatory black hole.

What our hearings demonstrated was that speculation in the commodities markets by noncommercial investors... has grown enormously from 2003 to 2008.

I cannot imagine a federally or State-chartered bank being allowed to have a leverage ratio of 30:1.