Robert C. Byrd

Somewhere, someone had better take a hard look at the huge disconnect between our financial and intellectual support of the United Nations and its goals, and what the American people and the Congress will actually sanction.

The humanitarian relief mission is over. The mission for us, it seems, is accomplished. It is time to go.

Further U.S. action and participation in the newly expanded mission should either be specifically endorsed by the Congress, or we should pack up and go home. My vote is for the latter.

Mr. President, let us all thank God for this great country of ours, and for our Forefathers, and for the men and women who have sacrificed and worked throughout the years to preserve the land of the free and the home of the brave. Long…

In America, we are citizens. That means that the government belongs to us, and that if our Nation, State, and county are to work, we must fulfill certain duties, such as paying our taxes, voting, making our views known to our elected…

A hardworking, disciplined, wise, and skilled or educated American can make his or her fondest dreams a reality, and more millions of men and women have turned their dreams into realities in our country over the past two centuries than in…

We are links in a vital chain both to the dead and to the unborn. We are, at one and the same time, the sons of sires who sleep in calm assurance, that we will not betray the trust that they confided to our hands; and the sires of sons who…

Fortunately, the American people are not as naive as some of our friends may think. People are quite capable of seeing through the smokescreen the minority has thrown up as an excuse of continuing the politics of the past.

The American people want to know why the Republicans have chosen this time, when our economy is in such a fragile state, to have suddenly found religion.

It was OK to have deficits back then because they were being used to finance the military buildup that the Republican Presidents so desperately wanted.

I say to my colleagues, the cold war is over, it is finished. It is now time to look to the needs of our own people, to help alleviate their suffering and to put them back to work.

We hear the charge repeatedly from the minority side, tax and spend, tax and spend, tax and spend. What did they do when they were in control of the White House? Borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend.

The net interest on the U.S. debt is a hidden, a hidden tax on every American, man, woman, boy, and girl in this country.

The other side can try to amend the bill, but the tactic of holding the bill hostage to force back-room negotiations denies the American people an opportunity to see and to hear what is happening.

I say let us give this President a chance. Every new President has been given a chance at the beginning of his term for his program.

The partisan bickering is not what is important. The good of the Nation is what we should be thinking about.

No President's program is sacrosanct. I have voted against Democratic Presidents' programs in the past, and I have voted for Republican Presidents' programs.

The American people know that we need to reduce our budget deficits, but they also know that we need to create jobs and get our economy moving forward before we undertake the task of deficit reduction.

To those who continue to argue that we should pay for the spending in this bill, by either raising taxes or cutting spending elsewhere, let me say that to pay for a stimulus bill would be to offset its stimulative effect. If, for every…

The American people voted in November for change, they voted for a President who campaigned on the promise of putting people back to work, of stimulating our economy, and of getting this Nation moving forward again.

Clearly, the time has come to change course. We must begin to invest in the future, rather than borrow from it. We can no longer afford to live so wildly beyond our means, nor can we afford to continue to ignore the tremendous public…

We stand in danger of being looked upon as the world's policeman, and increasingly as a pauperized praetorian guard. We cannot allow this to happen.

The staggering size and complexity of the American defense establishment has now become a drain on our economy, a drag on our productivity, an impoverishment of precious scientific talent and research-major adjustments must be made, and…

With that kind of a national debt-$4 trillion now and heading for $6 trillion in a couple years, or three, talking about tax cuts? That is unrealistic. There has to be some pain.

But, Mr. President, again I say we cannot police the world. These things go on and on and on all down the river of time.