Political Quotes

“the spirit and the letter of the law has been complied with in this matter. I will just reference one aspect of compliance with clause 9 of rule XXI and with the rules in the Senate. This is what it says: ``The following list is also submitted in compliance with House Resolution 491, which requires a listing of congressional earmarks in the conference report or joint statement of managers that were not committed to the committee of conference by either house, not in a report on a bill committed to conference, and not in a Senate committee report on a companion measure. Such earmarks are marked with an `X' in the list below.'' If that ain't transparency, I don't know what is. All of them have the ``X'' mark, the asterisk, and are clearly following the spirit of the law. When the Republicans were in charge, they had 14,000 earmarks, and nobody knew where they were, where they came from, when they came. And now we have them in this bill. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.”