Political Quotes

“Madam President, we saw what happened here--the minority leader filibustering his own bill. He should have trusted his first instincts. Imagine if we would have passed the minority leader's resolution: The markets would have been jubilant, stocks would have gone up, one of the great specters hanging over our economy--that we would not raise the debt ceiling--would have been greatly mitigated in terms of damage and danger. We could move on to the real issues of dealing with the fiscal cliff and dealing with our debt situation and not have a debt ceiling hanging out there as a diversionary but dangerous issue. But for some reason--inexplicable--the minority leader, the Republican leader, changed his mind. Now he said on the floor, well, important measures deserve 60 votes. But when he brought it up earlier, he acted as if he was in favor of it. He was offering it. Now, of course, he is saying, no, he is going to object to his own resolution. I wish he would reconsider. Again, using the debt ceiling as leverage, using the debt ceiling as a threat, using the debt ceiling as a way to achieve a different agenda is dangerous. It is playing with fire. Yet, with the opportunity to take that off the table, reassure the markets, the minority leader blinked. I do not know why. It is hard to figure out the strategy that he is employing.…”