Byron Dorgan: “The fact is, it is not something I enjoy doing, to talk about the difficulties. I would like to talk about the…”

“The fact is, it is not something I enjoy doing, to talk about the difficulties. I would like to talk about the opportunities for this country. We will not get to the opportunities until we decide we are going to start taking care of some things here at home. This President, in this past fiscal year, the one we are in right now, sent us a request for $196 billion of emergency money and said: I want it put on top of the debt. Don't pay for it. Add it to the debt. That is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week for Iraq and Afghanistan, to replenish the military accounts for that purpose. Now we are told he is going to send another $70 billion on top of that. That takes us to close to three-quarters of a trillion that will have been spent, none of it paid for, all of it requested by this President as an emergency so it didn't have to be paid for. You look at that and you say to yourself: We have so much that needs doing, including not just on the budget side getting our act together but on the trade side, standing up for our country's interests, demanding fair trade, and, on the investment side, investing in infrastructure, all these things. Last night it was almost as if the President was oblivious to the fundamental causes of the economic difficulty. This is a great economic engine we have, but the fact is, it needs some work. It doesn't need somebody to polish it with a rag and hum a nice tune. It needs real work to get this engine going again.”