Carl Levin Quotations

While it is clear that we need to make some adjustments to protect Social Security for the long term, it is disingenuous to say that the trust fund is facing a crisis

Restoring responsibility and accountability is essential to the economic and fiscal health of our nation.

If we have a chance of succeeding and bringing stability and democracy to Iraq, it will mean learning from our mistakes, not denying them and not ignoring them.

Common sense should tell us that there is no reason for civilians to have access to easily concealable handguns with the capability to shoot through body armor.

We have a hope of succeeding if we learn from our past mistakes and pull together to make the hard choices.

Firefighters are essential to the safety and security of our local communities. We owe it to these men and women to provide them with better training and equipment so they can do their jobs more effectively and safely.

When a decision is made to go to war based on intelligence, it is a fateful decision. It has ramifications and impacts way beyond the current months and years

The terrorist attacks of September 11th and the courageous actions of our armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq remind us that friends of tyranny and enemies of freedom still exist

Safe storage and child access prevention laws are critical steps as we seek to reduce the occurrence of accidental shootings and suicides involving guns.

The Constitution is a document that should only be amended with great caution.

The intelligence failures with respect to Iraq were massive and have damaged our credibility around the world

It is of the utmost importance that our service members are adequately compensated for their duties, and that we offer them a quality of life that will enable them to continue to serve and to live comfortably

We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them.

Even top caliber hospitals cannot escape medical mistakes that sometimes result in irreparable damage to patients

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror

Dr. Rice's record on Iraq gives me great concern. In her public statements she clearly overstated and exaggerated the intelligence concerning Iraq before the war in order to support the President's decision to initiate military action against Iraq

Sadly, the President's budget proposal for the upcoming year once again puts cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans over addressing our country's severe fiscal problems.

The American people deserve a budget that invests in the future, protects the most vulnerable among us and helps to create jobs and economic security

I am 100 percent supportive of the stand-alone bill to repeal 'don't ask, don't tell' that Sens. Lieberman and Collins have now proposed, and indeed I will co-sponsor that legislation. It is time for this discriminatory policy to end, and I am willing to pursue any effective legislative path that could lead to that result

If they understand, which I believe they really are sensing, that the alternative the Republicans have been offering is to repeal what we've done, to go back to Bush policies - and if you asked the public what would you prefer, Bush economic policies or Obama economic policies, they take and prefer Obama economic policies.

It's unclear how air strikes on our part can succeed unless the Iraqi army is willing to fight, and that's uncertain given the fact that several Iraqi army divisions have melted away.

We should be hell bent on getting those weapons of mass destruction, hell bent on having a credible approach to them, but we should try to do it in a way which keeps the world together and that achieves our goal which is removing the... defanging Saddam..

There are many individual senators, including myself, who have said that, at an appropriate time after disposing of the impeachment matter, that an appropriate censure resolution that seems to me should be considered by the Congress.

If our intelligence is either manipulated or if it's shaded or if in some way it is exaggerated, it is very, very dangerous for us, particularly as we go down the road and look at other threats,.

We shouldn't knee jerk anything. The Iraqi government a few years back, when they had a chance to sign an agreement that would keep some of our presence there, refused to do it. So we've got to be very careful and thoughtful before we do anything.

If you like what Wall Street did for the housing market, you'll love what Wall Street is doing for commodities, Goldman's ability to influence any portion of the price for a key component of the industrial economy is simply unacceptable.

We set that date without getting the support of the U.N. We set that unilaterally. And we now are trying hard to get the U.N. involved. But without the support of the international community, that date could really backfire on us,

What we do is leave that up to the court if it finds that there's coercion.

New information shows that the web of Pinochet accounts in the U.S. was far more extensive, went on far longer and involved more banks than was previously disclosed.

He looked me square in the eye and said that they didn't take place, ... I must take Judge Roberts at his word.

It is inconsistent with what the Supreme Court did.

Our commanders in the field have consistently told us that there will not be a military victory over the insurgency without a political coming-together of the major Iraqi groups.

Merrill knew full well that Enron was trying to structure deals so that debt was hidden off balance sheet and cash flow was manufactured,

We've got to be willing to take a good hard look at ourselves and not leave all these gaps.

We need to devise a way to effectively inspect these trash shipments and if there is no way to inspect them adequately, we simply should not allow them into this country.

Enron's deceptions were shocking, and equally shocking was the extent to which respected U.S. financial institutions like Chase, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch helped Enron carry out its deceptions and mislead investors and analysts about the company's finances,

There's nothing but foot-dragging relative to the investigation, ... There's a lot of evidence that the administration went way beyond the intelligence that was provided to them.

Seeking the support of the world community is not giving the U.N. a veto. It is getting strength and credibility should force be needed,

That means political unity, which is absolutely essential to defeat the insurgency, does not exist in Iraq, ... Meet the Press.

talk directly to the North Koreans. That's what's been missing. ... It has led to real failure in these policies. The nuclear threat is increasing from North Korea as a result.

After the war started, the administration began an effort to change the subject of the debate from the actual presence of weapons of mass destruction to WMD programs, then to WMD-related program activities and more recently to speculation about intentions,

The investigations so far have swept critical issues under the rug,

I believe our message has got to be the following: 'You folks have got to solve your political issues, not duck them. You've got to settle them',