Political Quotes

“It's always my honor to be recognized to speak here on the floor of the United States House of Representatives, and I'm privileged to hear from the ``Dr. Phil Show'' that we've just listened to over this past 60 minutes. I have a few things on my mind that I'd like to inform you of, Madam Speaker. And I'd start with this: that sometimes we need to take a look at the bigger, broader direction that this Congress is going and this country is going. And one of the things that I've learned, being involved in the legislative process, in fact, back in the Iowa State Senate some years ago, one of my colleagues said we're so busy doing that which is urgent that we're not addressing those things that are important. And that should frame all the things that we do. We should have a long-term plan. We should have a big picture plan, and the things that we do should fit into that. We should be putting the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together under that broader view. And how does that broader view fit? Our Founding Fathers understood it. They understood the perspective of history. They knew where they stood in history, and they acted accordingly. They understood human nature. They understood human universals. They watched the continuum of history to get up to their point, and they made deep, long-term, broad, deliberative decisions that were difficult and debated, they were hard-fought out, and they put those pieces in place for us.…”