Political Quotes

“Madam President, I appreciate my colleague's remarks about the agricultural community. I am certainly hearing that, and one of the very real factors in our inability to create jobs in America is the surging regulations that burden the private sector including the agricultural community. Mr. Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, was asked about that yesterday. He said no study had been done about it, talking about the banking regulation primarily. We need to do more about that and face the reality that that is so. Last week's economic numbers were not good. They were very troubling. We saw an increase in unemployment. We saw a decline in consumer confidence. We saw a decline in manufacturing in the Midwest--a key area of our country for manufacturing. A number of factors were noted during that period which were not good. I guess it is part of an accelerated decline in the stock market, which is down 5 percent, maybe 6 percent, after 5 consecutive weeks of decline, and the Senate has gone 770 days without passing a budget. It is a fundamental responsibility of this body, required by statute, that we pass a budget. The date is April 15--and April 1 to commence hearings in the Senate--and we have not met that responsibility. In fact, we haven't even had a markup in the Budget Committee to commence considering a budget. Our Democratic leader, Senator Reid, the majority leader in the Senate, has stated it would be foolish to pass a budget.…”