Political Quotes

“Mr. President, amid all the rhetoric and the blame games and, yes, even theatrics, I want to make sure the American people actually understand what President Obama and the majority leader are asking us to do. Their position is that Congress should raise the debt limit--actually suspend the debt limit through the end of 2014 and increase our national debt by another $1.1 trillion without doing anything to solve our underlying fiscal problems, including the $17 trillion in debt we have already run up. I cannot imagine there is anyone in this Chamber or within the sound of my voice who thinks that is a good idea. At some point, if we keep maxing out our credit card rather than dealing with our debt problem, our spending problem, we come back to the bank, so to speak, and ask for our debt limit to be increased another $1.1 trillion, where will this end? I can tell you where I think it will end: It will end in disaster. Ultimately, at some point our creditors will lose confidence in our ability to repay that money. At some point interest rates are going to not be zero or next to zero, they will be up around the historic average, 4 percent or 5 percent, and we will have to pay China and our other creditors more and more of our Federal budget just to pay interest on the national debt. At some point that becomes unsustainable. It will hurt our national security. It will hurt the safety net programs we all care about, to protect our most vulnerable.…”