Political Quotes

“Madam President, I come to the floor today to talk about the state of our economy, where we have come from, where we are headed, and the critical challenges facing our Nation. I want to go back and remind people of where we have come from. I think it is very important to put in context the circumstances we now confront. First of all, the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 was the worst recession since the Great Depression. By the way, this was not the creation of Barack Obama. He inherited this mess, and he has done quite a good job of getting us moving in a better direction, but more of that later. In the fourth quarter of 2008--that is the last quarter before this President took office--the economy was actually shrinking at a rate of almost 9 percent. In the first month of 2009, we lost 800,000 jobs. The housing market was in crisis, home building and sales were plummeting, we faced record foreclosures, and the financial market crisis was threatening global economic collapse. In fact, I will never forget being called to a meeting in the Capitol in the fall of 2008, and I was the last one to arrive. It was the leaders of the House and the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, and there was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury in the Bush administration telling us they were going to take over AIG the next morning. They told us if they did not, there would be a financial collapse in this country within days. I have to say, that gets your attention.…”