Political Quotes

“I certainly hope the Senator from Mississippi feels better. I feel better because he has expressed my sentiments very clearly. We have been waiting 2\1/3\ years to have this bill in the Senate, and we have plenty to work on. I hope we are ready to move forward. I will add to what the chairman of the EPW committee, my colleague from Oklahoma, has said. Recognize that last year during the consideration of the Transportation bill, the Senate voted 76 to 21 in favor of funding the highway bill at $255 billion, mass transit at $56 billion. This vote was a strong signal that the Members of the Senate believe we need to spend more dollars for safety, for our economy, for jobs, for our long-term growth and future on highways. We did adopt in this budget resolution the provision presented by my colleague, Senator Talent, and the Senator from Michigan, to give the Finance Committee the opportunity to increase funding for the bill as long as it was properly offset, and 80 Senators voted in support of it. That is exactly what the chairman and the ranking member, Senators Grassley and Baucus, have done in their amendment. I urge we support this amendment because we are still going to be short of where we were last time. No one is going to be able to get, for their particular areas of interest, their particular priorities, the same amount of money that would have been available under $318 billion.…”