Political Quotes

“Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Indiana whom I heard a moment ago. I think he is absolutely right. We have deeper and more important problems we need to address, along with the important decisions we make over the next 24 hours on the debt limit. It is necessary to extend the debt limit, but it is not sufficient. We also have to deal with these underlying fiscal problems, and I think my colleague from Indiana stated that well. I rise to talk about the debt limit proposal and how we can provide a pathway forward on a bipartisan basis--again, not just to solve this immediate problem that confronts us but also to deal with these deeper and very serious problems we have with our fiscal deficits and a weak economy. It may be good to start by asking why we are here. We are here because we have a law that says the U.S. Government can borrow only so much. The law says the U.S. Government can borrow only up to $14.3 trillion. That is a lot of money--$14.3 trillion. It is approximately 95 percent of our economy. This is unprecedented, of course. We have never had debts at this level before. Many economists look at this and believe it is already having a very negative impact on our economy to have this huge debt out there because it affects the private sector.…”