Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to also offer to my thoughts on the career and service, the personality and the values of Senator Rob Portman, one of a number of retiring colleagues whom I will dearly miss. I was somewhat surprised by the timing of Senator Blunt's farewell address and missed the opportunity to also speak to his departure. They have in common an important shared characteristic: a passion for getting things done, for being a Senator who serves their State and Nation, who works across the aisle and delivers real solutions. Stop taxing death and disability--that is the first bill that Rob and I got to the President's desk and signed into law. Under the previous administration, it had a very catchy name, and it was a simple solution to a pRoblem most of us had never heard of, which was that if someone who had taken out student loans died and thus was unlikely to repay them and those student loans were discharged as a result of their permanent disability or death, that benefit was taxed, and the tax attached, in the case of one of my constituents, to their parents, to the estate of the deceased child. When I first talked to Rob about this on the floor, he said: That is a terrible thing; we should stop it. From that simple germ grew a dozen different legislative initiatives.…”