Political Quotes

“I have a simple proposition I am going to present to the floor. Although on a supplemental we cannot change tax policy--we all know the blue slip rule, and to use the jargon my friend, the chairman of the committee, understands better than anybody here, I cannot, we cannot, legislate tax policy on this bill that does not originate in the House, and so on--what I do want to do is, I want to get the Senate on record with a sense of the Senate that the Senate Finance Committee report back within 90 days a piece of legislation repealing-- repealing--this $2.6 billion in incentives provided to the oil companies. Now, the fact is, there are going to be some on this floor--and I am prepared to listen to the argument because when I raised this before, some argued: Well, smaller companies, companies producing less than 500,000 barrels a year maybe need this incentive, that they may need this incentive to maximize their capability of producing oil. I do not think that is accurate, but I am prepared to listen to that. I am prepared to listen to that. But for the time being, I want to put my colleagues on notice that the last group in the world that needs a tax break now is the oil companies--the absolute last--not because they are bad guys, not because of anything else. I do not even know if they asked for it. I often say to my friends on this side of the aisle that sometimes folks on my side make a mistake. They don't realize that rich folks are just as patriotic as poor folks.…”