Political Quotes

“I am not aware of it. We are now 715 days without a budget. This is particularly problematic since we are facing such an acknowledged debt crisis. The Secretary of the Treasury Geithner came before the Budget Committee. I asked him a number of questions. I asked him about the Rogoff and Reinhart study that says when our debt reaches over 90 percent of our economy, 90 percent of GDP, it causes the economy to slow down, be dragged down by that debt 1 percent of GDP. So if it was going to increase it 3 percent, it would increase it 2; and this amounts to, another study says, 1 million jobs. One percent of GDP growth is 1 million new jobs added. So it is very serious. I asked him was that true. By the way, I think my colleagues are aware that we are past 95 percent of GDP today. We are over the 90 percent mark, and by September 30, we are projected to be 100 percent. So we are well above the number. The true number is not the public debt but the gross debt, and the gross debt would be 100 percent by the end of September. Mr. Geithner said, yes, he agrees with the study that shows it pulls down the growth, and added: It is in many ways more serious than that because it could lead to a debt crisis, the kind of thing Erskine Bowles, the President's choice to head the debt commission, has warned could happen. We have a responsibility to lead the Nation that avoids us undertaking a crisis that we can see coming. We have a clear and present danger to the American Republic, this debt.…”