Political Quotes

“If our colleagues looked at the items we are using to offset, do you agree with me, I say to the Senator, not only could most of these items wait, it would be probably good we never spent the money at all? So when you talk about priorities between 1.5 million people who could be saved from foreclosure in 14 months with this money versus what we are offsetting--and only 17 percent of the offset money, I say to the Senator, I believe, is spent in the first year--the $22 billion we give to the FDIC to manage foreclosures would save 1.5 million homes in 14 months. So I would argue we are not shortchanging anyone by offsetting this money, that what is in the offset not only could wait, a lot of it could wait till hell froze over because it makes no sense to spend it to begin with. So it is not as if we are robbing somebody with a useful program. We have looked into this $800 billion, $900 billion--whatever it is--bill, I say to the Senator, and we are astonished to find that maybe there is some money in here that does not make a whole lot of sense in terms of stimulating the economy, saving housing or banking, and I think we have done a pretty good job of offsetting it. I would ask my colleagues one simple question, and I will end with a question to the Senator from North Dakota. If you assume we are going to be asking the American people for more money to fix their housing problem and their banking problem, the question I have is, one, why wait when we can do something now?”