Political Quotes

“I will be brief, but I do appreciate so much the comments of the Senator from Tennessee. He is one of our most valuable Members. He is an honest person. He can summarize complex matters in ways even I can understand. I think he stated honestly and fairly where we are today. Not only did President Obama's own Office of Management and Budget Director, Peter Orszag, say we ought to keep the rates where they are, not go up on the upper income people at this time of economic stress and job loss, not raise taxes on them--although my colleague is saying that somehow if we pass this legislation it would be a bonus. For 10 years these rates have been at this level. We are talking about raising the rates if we don't take action. I am going to recall that Senator Alexander serves on the Budget Committee, as does Senator McCaskill. We worked hard on some important legislation together that I think will be helpful in containing spending. We recently had a Budget Committee hearing a few months ago. I think Senators Alexander and McCaskill were there. We had three premier, exceedingly well-known economists testify, two called by the majority and one called by the Republican minority. That is sort of traditional. We had Mr. Zandi from Moody's, Allen Blinder of Princeton, and John Taylor of the Taylor rule. The violation of his rule by Mr. Bernanke was a significant factor in the bubble in housing. But Mr. Taylor was a Republican witness.…”