Political Quotes

“I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut. Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman. In 2002, Warren Buffett called derivatives ``financial weapons of mass destruction.'' As Wall Street firms used these derivatives to construct highly leveraged speculative positions in 2008, these positions generated losses so large across the financial system that the Federal Government bailed out Wall Street to prevent a financial and an economic collapse. The cost of the bailout was $800 billion. By choosing not to sufficiently fund the CFTC, and we are talking about $130 million, the Republicans are ensuring average American taxpayers will once again have to bail out their friends on Wall Street potentially to the tune of $800 billion. Tonight on this floor, we heard a colleague say that the savings to the Navy in taking speculative trading out of the market would result in billions of dollars saved with regard to the cost of fuel. We are talking about $130 million to protect taxpayers. The 2012 Defense bill is $118 billion for two wars the American people did not support. The previous administration spent hundreds of billions of dollars without paying for it, and this majority is unwilling to pay $136 million to prevent another financial collapse. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to think that they're talking seriously about deficit reduction, about a country going broke, and that what they're here to do is to save money.…”