Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the Senate is about to engage in a cloture vote on the Senate Democratic leadership's third stimulus bill. What I find surprising is that what we are about to vote on indisputably and absolutely belongs to the majority leader. That is to say we are not going to vote on a bipartisan package that I put together with Finance Committee Chairman Baucus. I was under the impression that the Senate Democratic leadership was genuine in its desire to work on a bipartisan basis, but clearly I was mistaken. Although the Senate Democratic leader was highly involved in the development of a bipartisan bill, he arbitrarily decided to replace it with a bill he hopes to jam through the Senate. As much as I was surprised by the Senate Democratic leader's disregard for bipartisanship, I am even more surprised by the explanations given by him and his cohorts. Perhaps the most significant change between the bipartisan package Chairman Baucus and I helped put together and the package we will be voting to move to is that a package of expired tax provisions has been removed. Normally referred to as extenders, these generally very popular and certainly bipartisan provisions have been extended several times over the past few years. What is surprising is that hyperpartisan members of the majority have suddenly decided that the tax extenders are partisan pork for Republicans.…”