Political Quotes

“I would say to my friend from Massachusetts I am prepared to close when he is. I have no further speakers remaining. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McGOVERN. May I inquire how much time I have remaining, Mr. Speaker. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts has 7\1/2\ minutes remaining. Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. First of all, with regard to the underlying bill that is being brought before the House today, a whole bunch of appropriations bills bunched together in an unprecedented way and, I would say, in an undemocratic way as well--nobody has had a chance to read these bills, over 1,300 pages--I don't think anybody in this Chamber has read them all. Close to 1,000 amendments were submitted. They were all asked to be submitted before we came back into session while people were still on work recess. I don't think Members have had a chance to review all of the amendments. As I said, hundreds of good amendments have already been rejected. Last night in the Rules Committee, I invoked Senator John McCain's name. He recently wrote a piece in which he called upon Congress to go back to regular order. I agree with him. We ought to go back to regular order. That is what the Speaker of the House promised when he took the gavel, we would have regular order. This is not regular order. This is not the way we should decide spending matters.…”