"Democrats are committed to ending years of irresponsible budget policies that have produced historic deficits. Instead of compiling trillions of dollars of debt onto our children and grandchildren, we will restore pay-as-you-go budget discipline."—Speaker Nancy Pelosi, December 12, 2006

The President said in February, when the first bill was passed, and we did it in record time, we worked together in a bipartisan way, that he didn't want to do any of these other things: unemployment insurance, food stamps, LIHEAP, aids to states in arrest, because he wanted to just do the rebates, he wanted to see how they worked. Well, I think they had a positive effect except they have been offset, as has been said by our experts, by the rising costs in other necessities for the American people. So while they may have saved the second quarter from a technical definition of a recession, the fact is that we are into a third quarter and we need to have another stimulus package. Last time, it took the testimony of Chairman Bernanke to convince him of that; hopefully he will hear from his financial advisers, although Bernanke is independent of the President, I hasten to add.