Pat Toomey

We have a moral obligation to repay people who have lent us money.

Under no circumstances should the United States ever even get close to defaulting on the debt that we have issued.

I am willing to vote to raise the debt limit. But I am only willing to do that if we are going to make the cuts in spending and the changes in process that got us here.

The President is now calling for another--basically a stimulus bill, $50 billion to build high-speed rail, which I think would be a shocking waste of money.

The administration created a new trillion dollar entitlement program, launched an $800 billion stimulus spending.

While we rightly focus on the level of our deficits and our debt, it is spending that hasten us here.

I think that is quite an assumption to make given the circumstances.

I applaud the Congress for doing that.

We are at a time where we are accumulating an unprecedented amount of debt.

We thought it was a bit of a heroic assumption to assume we paid for it over the whole period.

My suspicion is it is on a trajectory that continues to rise higher after that.

They are creating a staggering amount of money.

I have to share the concern and disappointment that several of my colleagues have already expressed about what I see as a real lack of leadership here.

I just think it is really important that we do not leave that out when that is what is getting people jobs today.

I really think the American people want us to make the big, tough decisions that assure us that it will restore a fiscally sustainable path.

I personally do not think that is as effective as what I am suggesting, but economists disagree.

My concern is that ever-bigger government, however you fund it, leads to slower economic growth and lesser job creation and a lower standard of living.

The negative impact from higher taxes exceeds the revenue benefit to the Government from an increase in taxes.

We ought to really equate and think about the total tax burden by looking at the total amount of spending.

I would just point out that we learned in the 1970s that we can have a lot of slack, weakness in the economy, and still have very high inflation.

If you look at many traditional measures of monetary policy, we are currently embarking on a very unusual and, it seems to me, dangerous course.

I would simply argue that I think the fiscal irresponsibility is what hasten us into this situation, and the refusal to do anything about it is the worst message we could send to the market.

It is my fear that they will be very successful at increasing inflation expectations, quite likely increasing inflation itself.

It would be so disruptive and so damaging to our entire economy, to the millions of savers, Americans as well as others, that I cannot foresee how a Treasury Secretary would permit that to happen.

The Treasury could, nevertheless, ensure that those people holding the marketable securities of this Government would receive their interest payments.