Political Quotes

“Mr. President, when we were last here together, it was roughly 2 a.m. Saturday morning as this Chamber took up and passed by a very narrow margin--I believe 51 to 49--one of the biggest, broadest, most comprehensive pieces of financial legislation likely in our lifetime. The last time this Congress took up and passed comprehensive tax reform, I was 21 years old. It has been a long time since a bill of this scope and reach and impact has been considered, debated, and passed in this Chamber. I wanted to give some reflections this evening on what happened very early Saturday morning and what it means. First, it did not have to be this way. That bill passed on a straight party-line vote. Not one Democrat voted for it, and all but one Republican Senator voted for it. I joined more than a dozen of my colleagues in a press conference I think 2 weeks ago, saying that we wanted to work across the aisle and that we were trying yet getting no opportunity to do so. Weeks and weeks ago, a group of us put out a letter to our colleagues saying that we wanted to work together on tax reform that would make our country more competitive and that would deal with some of the long- unaddressed issues in our Tax Code and yet be fiscally responsible.…”