Political Quotes

“To the point the Senator from Kansas was making, he talks about higher interest rates and the impact of not dealing with the fiscal circumstances in which the country finds itself. Look at what is happening in Europe. Three-year government bond interest rates are about 19.4 for Portugal, 28.9 for Greece, and 12.9 for Ireland. Think about the impact in this country if we had interest rates go back to what is even a 20-year average. We would see an additional $5 trillion, about $5 trillion in additional borrowing costs in the next decade alone. That is if we went back to the 20-year historical average for this country, not to mention going to what they are looking at in countries in Europe, with these 19, 20-percent rates. Think about auto loans, think about home loans, think about student loans, think about business loans--all those things we rely on in our economy and that families across this country rely on, in order to carry on with their daily lives if we were looking at those types of interest rates. That is the type of interest rate sensitivity we have. If we do not get our fiscal house in order, we could very well end up like many of these countries, and that would be devastating for our economy. The most important work we could be doing right now--and the Senator from Kansas pointed this out--is to put policies in place that actually grow the economy and support jobs.…”