Political Quotes

“This debate reminds me of a famous expression attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes: Prejudice is like the pupil of the eye: The more lights you shine on it, the more tightly it closes. This is like a religious argument. This is like a holy war. This is like the debate we are going to hear on the bankruptcy bill: a lot of hyperbole and talk about how bad this is. The fact of the matter is these arguments sound very familiar. In fact, in the many years I have had the honor of serving in the Senate, I have heard them often. Every time we debate the wisdom of raising the minimum wage so low-income workers can make a viable living, we hear it is going to put people out of business. The fact is it never happens. It does not stop my earnest colleagues from making the exact same arguments again and again every time we raise the issue. It is not just in the context of debating the minimum wage that I recall arguments about businesses facing the prospect of having to shut down to comply with Federal rules and regulations. In fact, virtually every time OSHA issues a ruling, claims are made about the enormous costs businesses will incur. In 1974--and I am dating myself--when OSHA issued the ruling to reduce worker exposure to vinyl chloride, the cancer-causing gas, we were warned that the entire plastics industry would fold.”