Pete Domenici: “That is absolutely correct. Incidentally, in my list of things that have hurt the economy, that we had to eliminate, I…”

“That is absolutely correct. Incidentally, in my list of things that have hurt the economy, that we had to eliminate, I failed to mention that we, the United States, had imposed upon us the 9/11 incident. It caused a lot of turmoil in this economy. I am not saying that trying to ignore the terrible deaths that occurred and the wrath that Americans have for the terrorists. But that should be in the list, also, of things that would add to the economic downturn. But the Senator is correct. The President not only inherited a recession, but it continued afterwards, and it could not have been caused by President Bush because it occurred too quickly. With an economy this size you can't do anything in 2 months. If you wanted to hurt it, you couldn't hurt it. It is too big, too powerful. As a matter of fact, if you want to cut taxes, you have to be patient because they do not bring the economy back tomorrow or next week. It takes a while. It took a while. While the doubters ran around the country talking about no jobs, the economy was percolating underneath and created the jobs. That is what happened today. I forgot to mention one thing we did not do that is currently a political issue and is in this campaign. That is, what do we do about the fact that most of these tax cuts--I just told you what my view is about them, which is that they help--are temporary? They should not have been temporary; Congress would have made them permanent.”