Quotes from Jim Cooper

Our nation suffers when Congress fails to pay America's bills on time.

Immortality awaits the legislator fortunate enough to have a significant law named after him. Think of Pell grants or Stafford loans for students, Sarbanes-Oxley to regulate Wall Street, or the Hyde Amendment on abortions.

If Congress wanted to intervene with the Federal Reserve, well, we created the Federal Reserve. We could uncreate it. But would you want Congress regulating the money supply? We'd have drowned in inflation, or gone bankrupt, decades ago.

President Clinton was able to achieve budget surpluses despite a divided government.

It took the first 204 years of our Nation's history to accumulate $1 trillion in debt. And now we are doing that every 2 or 3 years.

Equality under the law is the slow triumph of hope over history.

It's not just that families can't buy a home or start a business without some savings tucked away.

Congress as a whole is less popular than it's been since polling was invented.

In Congress, it's all pork, all the time.

Bush may be a strong leader in the war on terrorism, but on budget deficits he is missing-in-action.

Well, where is the money? Show me the money? Our allies have put up a few billion dollars, but the American taxpayer has been required to shoulder the burden of this war.

While tax refunds amount to substantial income for many Americans, current IRS rules do not allow taxpayers to directly deposit their refund into more than one account.

If taxpayers want better results from Congress, they must stop paying their elected officials for failure. After all, you get what you pay for.

If we don't change, millions of American families are just one medical emergency, or one layoff, away from financial disaster and bankruptcy.

This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.

This is a simple change that will provide a huge financial boost for many Americans, particularly low- to moderate-income families. It is an important step in making sure we do everything we can to encourage all Americans to save and plan for the future.

The real problem with big issues like Medicare is that both parties have to be brave at the same time. Every pollster will tell you not to do that to get partisan advantage. Too many people here are willing to deliberately harm the country for partisan gain. That is borderline treason.

With our national savings rate well below one-percent, it is imperative that the government embrace innovative and cost-effective means of boosting personal savings.

Any politician who's ever been re-elected knows that friends come and go; enemies accumulate.

Aging nations have arteries clogged with obsolete laws, slowing blood flow and preventing oxygen from reaching all parts of the body politic. Physicians call this arteriosclerosis; historians see decline of empire.

First, the year 2004, the year past, the Comptroller General of the United States, David A. Walker, said that arguably it was the worst year in American fiscal history, clearly setting our Nation on an unsustainable path.

The truth is that health-care reform will always be a nuisance, with version 2.0 followed by next year's 2.1. As long as it boosts productivity, it's worth it.

This Congress is simply not doing its job under Republican leadership.

We are scheduled to meet this year fewer days than any Congress since at least 1948. And that is even before I was born. So far, we are in the 123rd day of this year, and yet we have only had 26 voting days in this body. That is a shame.