Political Quotes

“Madam President, our country is at a crossroads. Anybody who is watching Europe will find that they have been very slow to address the real underlying problems of debt and deficits there. They have a much more difficult time than what we should because they have a monetary union without a political union. We have a monetary and political union. The fact is that over the next 10 years we are going to have a debt-- including borrowing money for student loans, borrowing money to pay back Social Security, what has been stolen--we are going to have a true debt of about $27 trillion to $28 trillion. It is absolutely unsustainable. It won't happen--according to Ben Bernanke--because his statement is, the world will not loan us the money. What is going on in Europe today? What is going on in Europe today is the markets are punishing the countries that have excessive debt-to-GDP ratios. We sit at 100 percent debt to GDP. We see what has happened just in the last 2 weeks to bond rates for Italy. The differential between an Italian bond rate and a German bond rate is now about 430 basis points, a 4.3 differential for the same length maturity bond for Italy versus Germany. What is the difference? Germany is living within the confines of its economic capability. Italy didn't. How does that apply to us? It applies to us in that we are not and what will happen to us if we don't make the difficult changes that are necessary.…”