Political Quotes

“I plan to withdraw this amendment. I had planned to from the beginning. What I wanted to do was come down here and explain the spoils system that this kind of earmarking represents. The problem, the gentleman mentioned that this amendment is crafted in a way that it would prohibit the spending of money on these projects. It would. The problem is there is no way to craft an amendment that wouldn't do that. What we have here is a situation where we simply can't go in and say this is a good earmark and this is not, not through this process. That's part of the whole flawed aspect of what we are doing here and why we need to change this. But the gentleman is correct, we shouldn't give the administration a free ride to say this is where things ought to be spent. We have the power of the purse. This is article I stuff, and we ought to exercise it.”