Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Petri has done a great job as our Republican leader of the Aviation Subcommittee. I admire his work. Mr. Costello, who chairs that committee, Mr. Oberstar, the former Chair of that subcommittee, myself, as a former Chair of that subcommittee, a tremendous amount of expertise out here today. Our committee is pretty bipartisan, and we try to get things done, not just in the interest of our committee, not in the interest of a partisan position, but in the interest of the country. I am particularly frustrated today, and I expressed some of that frustration when the rule came up. And the rule, as Members know, Mr. Speaker, is the manner in which we consider a bill and amendments. Most Members may not be aware, Mr. Speaker, of the little quandary that we are in right now or how we got in this position. This, in fact, is an FAA reauthorization. It would be for a number of years. This is the full bill. The bill that I worked on in 2003 that expired in 2007, we have done 13 extensions as of, I think, this past week. We have heard that, you know, it may be Bush's fault that we didn't pass something during the first 2 years that the Democrats controlled in overwhelming majority numbers both the House and 60 votes, until about a month ago, in the other body. But you can't tell me, of all people, that we couldn't deal with President Bush on an issue that affects 11 percent of our economy. This is 11 percent of our economy.…”