Political Quotes

“first, I support and second very strongly the comments made by my good friend and colleague from New Hampshire. I am a traditionalist, and I like to see things come out of the committee because, frankly, committee work ensures there is full consideration of all the measures that come to the floor. We have seen leadership rewriting bills--the farm bill, the energy bill, the stimulus bill--and the products are not good. What my colleague from New Hampshire has described seems to me not only a very expensive, very bad policy direction that has been taken on this trade adjustment assistance, it is beginning to smell to me like an effort to love it to death. I have been around legislative bodies long enough to know if one does not want to stand up and kill something, such as trade promotion, they do not want to come out and say, no, I am not for free trade, the best way to kill it is to put so much stuff on it that it sinks. This was not done in committee. This was not done in the light of day, as the Senator from New Hampshire said. This was done behind the scenes. This was an effort to sabotage trade promotion. I hope this body will say no. Frankly, if it were to go to the President with all of this junk on it, I hope he would veto it and send it back. We need trade promotion authority. We do not need a huge new socialistic program to have the Federal Government paying people's salaries when they are working.”