Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Lee for his leadership and hard work on that. It is not an easy thing to draft something that people would all agree with, but I think all the Republicans have signed on to that, and we are happy for that, and I believe this is not an impossible dream. When I came to the Senate in 1997, we had a vote on the balanced budget amendment. It fell one vote short. We got 66; it required 67. How much better off would we have been today, how much less debt would we have placed on our children and grandchildren had that amendment been passed then? I do think it is time for a national discussion again on this issue and to make that change, and would wish to point out something about the debt we now have. The unemployment rate came in disappointingly with only 18,000 jobs created last month, in June. We look to have 150,000 just to stay level. Unemployment went up. Economic growth in the first quarter was expected to be much higher than it came in. I think the first number was 1.8. Maybe it has been revised to 2 percent. The Rogoff-Reinhart study has studied debt defaults in countries all over the world for eight centuries, a highly respected study. Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, said it is an excellent study and in some ways it underestimates the risk. This study says when your debt reaches 90 percent of the economy, 90 percent of the gross domestic product, it pulls down economic growth by 1 percent to 2 percent. We are now at 95 percent debt to GDP.…”