Russ Feingold: “I am deeply troubled by the enormous debt this legislation is creating for future generations. Under almost any other…”

“I am deeply troubled by the enormous debt this legislation is creating for future generations. Under almost any other circumstance I would vote against this bill for that very reason. But our economy is in desperate shape, and we are facing the worst economic crisis since World War II. Since the recession began a little over a year ago, 3.6 million jobs have been lost, with nearly half of those coming just in the last 3 months. The unemployment rate is 7.6 percent and rising, and the number of unemployed is approaching 5 million. The deeply flawed financial regulatory policies of the last two decades paved the way for this economic collapse, and the budget policies of the last 8 years have left us ill-equipped to address it without running up hundreds of billions in debt. There are no good options, but doing nothing is simply unacceptable. The bill on which we will vote today is far from perfect. On that there is nearly unanimous agreement. The question before us, then, is whether to vote against this bill and hope we can produce legislation that will be more effective, or to support this bill and begin to do something, however imperfect, to stop the economy from plunging further. Given the current makeup of the Senate, it is extremely unlikely that the Senate will produce a better bill. We could work on it for another couple of weeks, but the changes would be small. It is far more important that we act to prime the economic pump, and that we do so soon.”