Political Quotes

“This pointless exercise that the House has embarked upon here today illustrates the challenge that we have to try and deal meaningfully with the very real problems that America expects us to make progress on. This resolution has already been laid to rest in the Senate. It has been defeated. Ain't going to happen. So, no matter what the result of the hours of debate that we have here today, it will make absolutely no difference. It is an extension of what happened with the totally manufactured crisis surrounding the debt ceiling earlier this year. The debt ceiling increase was to deal with bills that we had already incurred, for which Congress over the years had already approved the spending, and we'd borrowed the money for it. It made no difference about future debt. It made no difference about the spending commitments that had already been made. Yet we watched tremors go through international markets, not because America couldn't pay its bills, but because some politicians, for their own purposes, were willing to risk that America didn't pay its bills. Unprecedented. We've raised the debt ceiling over 100 times. There was no doubt that we would, in fact, honor our commitments; but there were people talking crazy enough that cast doubt. That, I think, at least in part, is why we have seen the markets in the United States be on a roller coaster and people watch their 401(k)s maybe become 301(k)s one afternoon before they go up a little again and then go back down.…”