Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I respect the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Wyoming as well. They are two excellent colleagues, good people, and this is a tough bill. The underlying bill is a masterpiece of bipartisan accomplishment they can both be proud of. What I am saying about dietary supplements is no reflection on Senators Harkin or Enzi. This is an industry I have been watching for a long time for a variety of reasons. I would say the argument Senator Enzi made--that merely disclosing the label ingredients and name of the product to the FDA doesn't get to the consumer--argues for a bigger amendment than I am offering. It argues for a Web site and access and so forth. I understood that going in, and I agree with Senator Harkin that is an overreach in this time of budgetary problems. I wish we could do it. I think we should. I think we have an obligation to. But I didn't put it in here because I knew the first thing that would be said is we can't afford it. So we went to the FDA and said: Do you want this information? They said: Not only do we want it, we have already publicly stated we want it in reply to the GAO report. We said: Can you handle it if we send you the basic information of the products presently being sold? They said: Yes. I could go further and say more can be done, but that calls for a bigger role of government than even this amendment suggests.…”