Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I would like to begin by speaking for just a moment about some comments the distinguished majority leader gave this afternoon in his opening comments and then talk a little bit about the general issue we are faced with--frankly, in an effort to see if we can come to common ground. Let me start with a couple comments the majority leader made this afternoon. He has talked more than once about the fact that in his view, the Republican leaders have wasted time by pursuing a proposal they knew the Senate would not pass. I think there are two things to say about that. One could say the same about the majority leader's proposal. He hopes the Senate will not pass that either. So we have two proposals, one by Speaker Boehner that passed the House of Representatives but Senator Reid declared dead on arrival, and indeed it was tabled last night; the other, the Reid proposal, which is also dead on arrival in the Senate. As Leader McConnell noted this morning, there is a letter that has sufficient signatures on it to defeat it, and, in addition to that, I can tell you I have talked to my colleagues--all my Republican colleagues--and it will be defeated. I think the majority leader knows that. So the only question with regard to the Senate majority leader's proposal is, Why would we waste additional time debating a proposal we know is going to fail? Why have that vote at 1 a.m. tomorrow morning? Let's get it done, get it over with, and move forward.…”