Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, let me thank Congresswoman Slaughter, the gentlelady from New York, for her leadership and for yielding. This is not the open and transparent process the Republicans have promised the American people. Instead, we have had a closed-door process that has stacked this critical spending bill, a bill that is necessary to make our government and our Nation function, with a bunch of special-interest riders. For example: Gutting the budget of the IRS, that will not reduce deficits caused by the Bush tax cuts for the 1 percent, and that's in this bill. Helping to spread HIV and hepatitis C through dirty needles will not help our economic recovery. Yes, that will happen in this bill. Denying the women of Washington, DC, the right which other women have throughout the country, the right to health services, the right to have an abortion with the city's own money--not Federal funds, mind you, not Federal funds but other funds. We are denying, again, low-income, mostly African American minority women that right in this bill. Why in the world would we want to include this type of a rider in a bill to fund our government? It makes no sense. It's mean-spirited and it's wrong. Also, why would we want to continue to have provisions to pollute the air that we breathe and the water that we drink? That's in this bill, with some of these riders. That will not raise the failing median income of American workers. Unfortunately, again, this bill does that.…”