Bob Corker

It is rare that I am down here on the floor with the senior Senator from Tennessee, but it is always a pleasure. I certainly appreciate his great leadership and especially today. I enjoyed all of his comments. But his comments about the…

We need to move away from as much Government involvement and maybe to almost none.

I do. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized under the motion to proceed.

I rise to speak about the bill that is about to come before us--the China currency manipulation bill, as many are calling it. I want to speak about this bill because I think it is poor public policy. I know back home in all of our States…

The culture recently in many western democracies has been over-consumption, by Government, by individuals, by--you know, it has just been an over-spending type of arrangement.

That is one of the oddest proposals I have ever heard.

I actually am here to speak on another topic, but I was glad to hear the comments of the Senator from Illinois. I will say in general that I think consumers across our country are beginning to see the first of many consequences of Dodd…

I certainly could not blame Democrats for all of this occurring.

Sometimes we as policy makers create policies that have unintended consequences.

It is my hope that the Administration will try to institutionalize and not cause it to be something that is personality-based.

I find your solution really odd.

I certainly could not say that Republicans were to blame.

It seems to me that western democracies in general, governments have over-levered, consumers have over-levered.

I think what you are actually arguing is what many folks on my side of the aisle have argued for years.

I wish to say to my colleague I certainly have enjoyed his comments, and I am excited for him. I sit very close to him in the Senate, and I am with him a great deal. I do plan on keeping a cane out of the reach of my colleague for a few…

I think people could agree on that.

We are certainly creating another generation of gridlock among students in America.

I just think as we had one witness talk about the fact that those with good credit through the GSEs allow those people with bad credit to get loans at the same amount, I think that was a pretty interesting comment.

There is no question that we subsidize the housing industry.

But that is something that, again, I think much of what we do here is to try to create the environment and let the private sector generate the risk--or take the risk.

I think there is probably going to be an attempt to try to not let that drop.

We would rather people have lesser amounts of indebtedness than more amounts of indebtedness.

It seems to me that what we have done with our housing policy is we subsidize housing so much that we actually drive the price of it up.

I certainly appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from Utah. I will be very brief. I will actually be propitious in many ways. I am here at a time when the Senator from Virginia is the Presiding Officer. Last night there was a focus on a…

what we're doing there financially is highly distortive to the culture