Political Quotes

“I speak in support of the legislation. First of all, let me thank Chairman Frank and Subcommittee Chairman Waters for the bipartisan cooperation they've shown in bringing this bill to the floor. Mr. Chairman, this legislation is very good legislation. I would urge all Members to support it. What the legislation does, as Congresswoman Waters said, it allows the administration to negotiate debt relief arrangements with the 25 poorest countries of the world. It does not require them to enter into any specific agreement. It simply gives them that authorization. Once they have gone to those countries and negotiated debt relief, that agreement then has to come back to the Senate and the House for our approval. So we're not approving any specific action today. We're simply authorizing them to do what most of us in this body believe is the right thing to do, and that's debt relief for the poorest people of the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that a disaster is defined by magnitude and distance. We hear about a million and a half citizens of Darfur starving to death, and it is halfway around the world. It somehow does not grip us like seeing someone in our own community starve to death on the streets. But in reality, 1.5 million people have died in Darfur, and they're dying in Sub-Saharan Africa. They're dying in these 25 countries.”