Political Quotes

“if this has not depressed us enough, this year, so far, in 2004, the increase in the privately held debt is $380 billion. The increase in foreign-held debt is $370 billion. Ninety-seven percent of the increase in privately held debt is in the hands of foreigners. There is a fellow, Alan Sloan, who wrote not long ago in The Washington Post about us financing our government with borrowed money from anywhere on Earth where people will let us have some in exchange for our IOU, and he said this: ``Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.'' What of course he was talking about is, as the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) pointed out, when you are in hock all over the world, but particularly to Beijing, and look at what they have done; I cannot believe that this is just happenstance. Just since 2000, they have increased their holdings of our debt 119 percent. Now, there is a reason for that, and it is not because they see the world the same way the United States does every day. I am not bashing China, other than to say, we are creating a financial liability, a financial vulnerability that is tantamount to a national security issue.”