Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss the budget point of order that has been raised against the financial reform conference report. I will be voting to waive this point of order. As Budget Committee chairman, I do not take this step lightly. In fact, the point of order that has been offered is a point of order that I created in the 2008 budget, so it is something I feel strongly about as a general matter. But its applicability here is false in the face of the importance of the legislation we need to consider. The legislation before us is critical to our economic strength. I think we all understand that financial reform is long overdue. It has been almost 2 years since the financial sector collapse brought our economy to the brink of global financial collapse. I was in the room and Senator Dodd was in the room when we were informed by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury in the previous administration that if we failed to act at that dire moment, we could face a global financial collapse. That is how serious it was. Now that the economy has stabilized, it is easy to forget the crisis that swept through the financial markets and threw us into the worst downturn since the Great Depression--in fact, which risked a second great depression. But we cannot afford to forget. We need to remember that the problems on Wall Street and in our financial sector have a direct impact on Main Street and the lives of every American.…”