Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair, particularly since the Chair will be occupied by the distinguished Senator from Montana between now and then. I wish to respond very briefly to the statement of my friend from Arizona, with a couple big points. The first is that Senator McCain has declared the Postal Service of the United States dead much too prematurely. He compares it to the Pony Express. Of course, electronic mail and other changes have occurred but, today, every day, the Postal Service delivers 563 million pieces of mail--every day. There are businesses and individuals all over our country who depend on the mail. The estimate is there are approximately 8 million jobs in our country, most of them, of course--almost all of them--in the private sector, that depend in one way or another on the functioning of the U.S. Postal Service. It is not fair and it is not realistic to speak as if the Postal Service is dead and gone and it is time to essentially bury it with the McCain substitute. I cannot resist saying that Senator Collins and I come not to bury the U.S. Postal Service; we come to change it but to keep it alive and well forever because it is that important to our country. Secondly, Senator McCain speaks as if the substitute legislation, S. 1789, that we are proposing--bipartisan legislation--does nothing; that it is a status quo piece of legislation; it is not even a bandaid on the problem.…”