Political Quotes

“first of all I come from a city, Albuquerque, NM, in which the Rio Grande runs right through the middle of our city, so I understand the issues that are raised by the gentleman from Mississippi. But I think this amendment should be the place that we emphasize as strongly as possible that the gentleman from Mississippi's statement that we should not do away with all unfunded mandates is in fact not what we do in this bill. What we do is to allow for a point of order to be raised so that Members of Congress can be made responsible to identify the cost, and to vote on the record with respect to imposing any unfunded mandate on the States, whether it is with regard to effluent into rivers or any other subject. So there simply is nothing in this bill that prohibits the Congress from imposing an unfunded mandate. So all of the references to certain health protections will not take place because there is no money to fund them and so forth, simply does not ring true. We are just saying in this bill that Congress should justify up front and on the record the actions that it is taking.”