Peter Welch Quotes

You watch television and see what's going on on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress.

Congress needs strong parties, but it also needs the capacity to deal with budget and entitlement challenges that are likely beyond the reach of pure partisan exertion.

The American people were really not 100% convinced that this idea of default was really going to occur, and I think the media, current company excepted here, did not help in that regard because they confused the American people about what default actually meant.

The American people will eventually get hurt by this accumulated deficit. That's the problem. We have too much deficit. We have to find a solution.

We cannot deal with the debt. The Democrats are not going to allow reductions in entitlements like Social Security. The Republicans will not allow one dime of additional taxes. We have a deadlock of democracy.

Republicans must stop putting tax increases on the fiscal cliff negotiating table and start demanding that Democrats put forth serious proposals to reduce spending.

In light of these facts Republicans have put forth a variety of proposals to make Social Security remain solvent for future generations. But up to this point, Democrats have chosen to oppose our good faith efforts and insist that indeed there is no problem.

I want to state unequivocally for the world, as well as for the markets, as well as for the American people: I have no doubt that we will not lose the full faith and credit of the United States.

People have no confidence that Washington, both sides of aisle, are coming together to try and do what's right for the economy.

There are three legs of the stool; spending, entitlements and making the tax code fair and equitable. That's the three legs of the stool. If we do all of those in a responsible, bipartisan way, I think the American people would all be very, very happy.

I don't know of any of us that want to see any kind of default happen.

I am very concerned about anything that says 'revenue' because let's just be honest; revenue for Democrats has become code for tax increases.

America knows it has got to deal with its deficit problems so that it, too, can promise it is making its proper and best contributions to the world economy.

On economic policy, my support of smaller government, lower taxes and economic reform is consistent with the mainstream of the Republican Party in the United States and with many Democrats as well.

The Senate needs 60 votes to pass anything. They have to compromise with liberal Democrats to spend more money. Even though arguably we have control of the Senate, we really don't.

To be honest, I haven't seen much serious budget planning since the Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 elections and grabbed onto the Senate filibuster. It's not the White House's fault that John Boehner couldn't deliver on a bigger deal.

The best thing to hold down spending is to have a Democratic President and a Republican Congress.

Nobody gets to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States just to extract political concessions. Nobody gets to threaten our economy and hurt millions of people just because there are a couple of laws you do not like.

American economic history does not support the idea that a strong economy depends on chronic federal borrowing.

Blame the Tea Party? Geez, no wonder Kerry did so well in an election. If it wasn't for the Tea Party, they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up; we would have been rated BBB.

Instead of more talk about salmon and high-speed rails, more criticism of the Supreme Court or more praise for the Soviet's Sputnik mission - President Obama should use his State of the Union Address to tell the American people the truth about the fundamental financial challenges our country faces.

The biggest threat to our economy comes from the loony left economic policies of the Democrats, which would scare off investment and bring back stagnation.

If Democrats don't want the government to shut down, support border security. It's that simple.

I think we have got to get the Republicans and the Democrats to get back to what I call the fiscal conservative, the issues that drive the tea parties.

The country has moved off track. The people in Washington don't have the hard-nosed business experience needed to get the economy up and running.