Karen Mills Quotes

We were able in the Recovery Act to get a program where we increased our loan guarantees to 90 percent. Because we had that program, a bank wouldn't have to take that much risk.

We really accomplished what we set out to do with the Recovery Act programs, which was to fill the lending gap created by the crisis.

I was in the room with, you know, more than a dozen Republicans trying to negotiate the stimulus. Most of them decided the politics of the situation meant they should walk away, even if it wasn't responsible in terms of what our country needed right then.

I supported the stimulus package.

What do you think a stimulus is? It's spending - that's the whole point! Seriously.

It has become fashionable to rail against government intervention in the economy, and the FHA is a favorite example by those trying to show the government's overreach. In reality, the FHA shows how government action during the Great Recession forestalled a much worse economic fate.

And taking more money out of the private economy and having the government perform as it has poorly done with the stimulus I don't think is the right way to go.

We have to change course. And we have to do so now. That is why I worked with my colleagues in Washington to pass the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

The economic meltdown that would define every aspect of Obama's economy came to a head well before he became president, of course, and so did the legislation that would be the basis for everything that came after.

During an economic crisis, what matters is that the government keeps its foot on the accelerator.

One of Obama's first major acts as president was to sign the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and some of the money in that bill went to Saft.

I think there is need for economic stimulus... and government can help make that up in a very difficult time.

Larger deficits are necessary and proper means to mitigate unemployment as the far greater evil in terms of human welfare.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

What the president announced yesterday, is that somehow magically, if we just continue to prime the pump of taxpayer dollars, we're going to see magically an economic recovery.

In response to the recession, the Obama administration chose to emphasize costly, short-term fixes - ineffective stimulus programs, myriad housing programs that went nowhere, and a rush to invest in 'green' companies. As a consequence, uncertainty over policy - particularly over tax and regulatory policy - slowed the recovery.

Yes. We do think that the stimulus package is raising GDP and raising employment relative to what would have happened otherwise.

Actually, I have been very supportive of a very robust stimulus package from day one. I think this economy has to have a major stimulus initiative because the only group with liquidity is the federal government.

When Obama was inaugurated, he and his team had an insight - though whether the insight was conscious or not I don't know. But it was this: The TARP $700 billion price tag was a new kind of model.

Obama came in and gave $700 billion to the bankers off the top as opposed to giving $700 billion to the poor.

I would give relief from the first $10,000 of the payroll tax. I would allow small businesses to accelerate depreciation so they would have an incentive to buy now rather than defer. I would also give to the states $40 billion of relief.

The extension and expansion of the payroll tax holidays for workers would be number one on my list and key to avoiding recession.

And people talk about the stimulus package and the jobs that it was supposed to create, it certainly didn't have the intended effects that everybody was hoping for or that the president and administration certainly was hoping for. So I think it's time to lay some new solutions on the table, some new ideas.

The S.B.A. does not lend directly to businesses, but instead backs loans to encourage banks to invest in small businesses as part of a nearly $90 billion portfolio.

The tax relief package enacted in 2001 was central to pulling the economy out of the post 9-11 recession. It's the reason we've got low unemployment and have created more than two million jobs in the last year.