Political Quotes

“on Monday night I had a lengthy colloquy with the managers, the principal sponsors of the bill, the Senators from Idaho and Ohio. A number of important questions were left unanswered. In some cases, the answers were conflicted. Those questions concern issues that are central to the way this bill will work. They need to be answered, I believe, before we conclude our work on this legislation. These are the questions which I have, and I have given a copy of these questions to my friend from Idaho. I want to read them, put them in the Record, in effect, and ask they be answered by tomorrow at some point. I am not seeking an answer, one-by-one at this point, because they take some time, I would think, to attempt to answer, if, in fact, they can be answered. Here are the ones that we had left outstanding. First, the effective date of the mandates. When is a mandate effective? That is an absolutely critical issue because that date sets off a 5-year time period and if during any one of those 5 years there is an estimate that the cost of the mandate is over $50 million, certain very significant things are triggered. So it is critical to know when is a mandate effective, and we had a long discussion on that on Monday night with a chart. If that is determined on a case-by-case basis, then who makes that decision and when is that decision made?”