UND Students Discuss Economy With Conrad

Press Release

Senator Meets With Honors Students in American Government Class

Grand Forks -- In the first in a series of state-wide campus visits, Senator Kent Conrad today met with students at the University of North Dakota to discuss their concerns about America's economic future and detail efforts to put the nation back on a solid fiscal course.

"By mid to late 2008, America was in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. We've come a long way since then," said Senator Conrad. "But the national economy still faces significant headwinds, and there is still a lot more work to be done."

Senator Conrad -- the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee -- met with honors students in Professor Mark Jendrysik's American Government class and discussed the causes of the current global economic crisis, emergency actions taken to avert a greater crisis, and the path to a more stable economic future.

In the fall of 2008, unemployment was surging and a housing crisis was rippling through the economy. Senator Conrad told the class of being called to an emergency meeting in the U.S. Capitol as the nation's economy teetered on the brink of collapse. "When I arrived there were the leaders of Congress -- Republicans and Democrats, Senate and the House -- the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and the Secretary of the Treasury in the previous administration. And they told us they were taking over AIG the next morning. They believed if they did not, there would be a financial collapse. Those were very, very serious days," Senator Conrad said.

Senator Conrad said key elements of the federal response have successfully pulled the economy back from the brink. He highlighted actions by the Federal Reserve to stabilize the financial sector, like lowering interest rates and injecting liquidity into the credit markets. He also discussed the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) which started under the Bush Administration and continued in the Obama Administration, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which has invested more than $800 million in North Dakota alone.

The class also discussed concerns with the nation's growing deficit and debt. Senator Conrad warned that the national debt is one of the greatest threats to the country's economic future and recommended that Congress immediately establish deficit reduction policies that will kick in after the economy has more fully recovered. He noted that by establishing and enacting these policies now, we will reassure the financial markets that the United States is confronting its long-term fiscal imbalance.

Senator Conrad is a member of the President's bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and is working to develop a bipartisan deficit reduction plan.

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