Political Quotes

“I rise to urge all of our colleagues to support the pending cloture motion filed by the leaders so we can begin a debate that will help decide whether the U.S. Postal Service--this iconic American institution created more than two centuries ago, embedded in the Constitution, created in the age of inkwells and quill pens--will survive in the age of e-mail and the Internet. To me, this cloture vote should be an easy one because if we vote against cloture, we are essentially saying two things: One is we don't want to do anything. If we don't do anything, the Postal Service is going to run out of money and hit its borrowing limit later this year, forcing us to miss payments and unnecessarily begin to shut back or close down operations, which is the last thing the country needs at this point. Frankly, the other thing we will do if we think we should do nothing is to leave the Postmaster General, the Postal Service, with an unlimited right to take steps that I believe a majority of Members of this body don't want to be taken precipitously without considering the alternative. That alternative is closing thousands of post offices around the country, including small towns in rural areas, and dramatically and quickly cutting back on the number of mail processing facilities, and therefore the standards by which mail is delivered and the speed with which it is delivered in this country.…”