Chris Van Hollen Quotes

By failing seriously to confront the most predicable economic crisis in our nation's history, the President's policies are committing us and our children to a diminished future.

Is bankrupting this great country the top priority of this administration?

When the economy gets wobbly, people pay attention to the leadership failures.

The fear among economists across the political spectrum that was - was that we were rapidly plummeting towards a second Great Depression. So, in the weeks and months that followed, we undertook a series of difficult steps to prevent that outcome. And we were forced to take those steps largely without the help of an opposition party, which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that had led to the crisis, decided to hand it over to others to solve.

Ladies and gentlemen, the economic disaster, the tailspin, the destruction of the greatest economic engine in the history of the world, these policies of Barack Obama's, which have led us to this point, are precisely why I fearlessly said and still say, I hope he fails.

Obamacare is his. The stimulus is his. The economy is his. And yet Barack Obama still treats it as though it's being run by others and he's still fighting them and he's running into obstacles.

The Great Depression in the United States, far from being a sign of the inherent instability of the private enterprise system, is a testament to how much harm can be done by mistakes on the part of a few men when they wield vast power over the monetary system of the country.

We didn’t admit it at the time, but practically the Whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started.

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one.

As I write in 2012 we certainly do not believe that it is over yet, and the worst may be yet to come. Efforts by governments to solve the underlying problems responsible for the crisis have still not gotten very far, and the 'stress tests' that governments have used to encourage optimism about our financial institutions were of questionable thoroughness.

Trickle-down did not work. It got us into the mess we were in, in 2008 and 2009. Slashing taxes on the wealthy hasn’t worked. And a lot of really smart, wealthy people know that. And they are saying, hey, we need to do more to make the contributions we should be making to rebuild the middle class.

I've never seen people as physically distraught as the Bush administration team was because of what was happening to the economy. I personally believe that the steps that President Obama took saved the economy. He doesn't get the credit he deserves for taking some very hard positions. But it was a terrible recession. So now we've dug ourselves out of it, we're standing, but we're not yet running.

It's going to be tough because the economy is going to be getting worse for a while. And it might fall off a cliff if this doesn't pass. But nobody will ever know that if it does.

The Stock Market was down today. Two major businesses declared bankruptcy, consumer spending is at an all time low - in other words, Bush is back on the job.

Nine million people - nine million people lost their jobs [in 2008]. Five million people lost their homes. And $13 trillion in family wealth was wiped out.Now, we have come back from that abyss. And it has not been easy.

Republicans don't like people to talk about depressions. You can hardly blame them for that. You remember the old saying: Don't talk about rope in the house where somebody has been hanged.

I guess the best way to describe that would be to connect with the fact that I came out of college just before the big Depression, and I came to New York.

If the government can't get the economy moving again, they have a lot of fundamental problems.

The people who lost the elections do not want to admit that they really lost, that the one who won was closer to the people and better understood what ordinary voters want. They are absolutely reluctant to admit this, and prefer deluding themselves and others into thinking it was not their fault, that their policy was correct, they did all the right things, but someone from the outside thwarted them. But it was not so. They just lost and they have to admit it.

At best, in such depression times, monetary policy is a feeble reed on which to lean.

The Depression, which started in 1929 was rather mild from 1929 to 1930. And, indeed, in my opinion would have been over in 1931 at the latest had it not been that the Federal Reserve followed a policy which led to bank failures, widespread bank failures, and led to a reduction in the quantity of money.

I don't think that any economist disputes that we're in the worst economic crisis since the great depression. The good news is that we're getting a consensus around what needs to be done.

After the economic 9/11, we will face a new world order.

If democracy is destroyed in Britain, it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights.

There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses.