Foreign Affairs

I would hope that every member on this floor of whatever party, of whatever ideological persuasion would pray that this Bill works, not for political purposes, because if this bill works, we will create those 3.5 million jobs. Am I absolutely sure that it will? I am not. I regret that I am not, but the best advice and counsel I have received over the last five months that we have been working on this Bill...

There are differences, and we're going to have to reconcile them if we're going to pass legislation, and we believe that passing legislation is critical. We're going to compromise. We believe the states need to have additional resources, so they don't lay off teachers, lay off firefighters, lay off police, and can stabilize their own governments in an era of very deep fall in their revenues.

There is a significant difference of opinion as to whether or not we need to act and how large the action needs to be. Marty Feldstein says we need to act with spend and tax cuts, which is what we're doing.

The challenges confronting this Administration and this Congress are unlike perhaps any in recent times, but i think the President-Elect, now President Obama said today that Americans are up to the task...

"There is a great deal to gain from looking back honestly at the choices made and their consequences..."

I would like to talk -- talk about the new standards. A new rules package that will insure that the House does the people's work ethically and efficiently.

Everybody understands, conservative, moderate, liberals, republican economists, democratic economists understand that in the short-term confronted with an economic crisis, that you try to stimulate the economy, and you do that by deficit spending.

I think more and more of the public is getting the sense, hey, maybe this is necessary and it affects me...

We spent a lot of time working on getting it right. As you know the bill that was presented to us by the administration and asked to pass was not in a position that we thought was appropriate. We added very substantial provisions in terms of transparency, in terms of oversight, in terms of capping compensation so the taxpayers weren't enriching the already rich. And providing for protections for homeowners, trying to make sure that we can provide for some workouts for people so they're not kicked out of their homes.

While I am sympathetic to the oil companies wanting to drill where they have the most promise, they have taken these leases. They have reserved them. They are not pursuing them, and we believe, and experts believe, there are vast stores of oil in those areas...