Tom Carper: “I was joking earlier with the occupant of the chair, and I said I would like to be recognized so I could tell you what I…”

“I was joking earlier with the occupant of the chair, and I said I would like to be recognized so I could tell you what I thought of the President's State of the Union message last night. I appreciate the chance to offer some thoughts and comments. First of all, the Presiding Officer may recall that when he kicked off his speech, he called for a return to civility. That is called for around here from time to time. Sometimes it is called for earnestly and other times it is something that we just say. I hope that it was offered in earnest and that all of us, Democrats and Republicans, will respond in like kind. I always found that in my old job in Delaware as Governor, I got a lot more done when we were civil to one another. Regarding the kinds of issues before us that the President talked about last night, if we are going to be successful, we need to do that. One of things I have been calling for, for I guess about a year or 2 now, ever since the President laid out his Social Security reform initiatives, was the notion of, if we are making progress on something as politically explosive as Social Security reform, it would be helpful to go back in time maybe 23 years to when President Reagan was President and Tip O'Neill was Speaker of the House. At the time, I was elected to the House of Representatives, where the Presiding Officer also served.…”