Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first, let me thank my colleague from Texas for her leadership on this and so many other issues that we have worked on over the years. One of my regrets in leaving the Senate is that I will not be able to work with her, and she has said the same thing about me. We will be off doing something else, but we are not going to give up on some of the fights we have been engaged in during these years. I want to just begin where my colleague left off, about the meaning of this fiscal cliff and what is being proposed as alternatives to going over the fiscal cliff. I was interested this week that the President has embarked on what one newspaper referred to as ``the fiscal cliff campaign trail.'' We have seen the pictures. He is out speaking as if the campaign were still going on, and the centerpiece of his pitch--and I heard him say it on TV again last night--is that the House of Representatives should pass a bill that was passed in the Senate related to 2001 and 2003 income taxes. The President is a constitutional scholar, and he served in the Senate. He knows that can't be done. It is unconstitutional. The Constitution requires that all revenue measures must be initiated in the House of Representatives. That is one reason the bill got through the Senate, because everybody knew it couldn't pass. It was simply a statement by our Democratic colleagues. It wasn't serious legislation.…”