Political Quotes

“those who followed the conversation on the floor of the Senate this morning are aware of the fact we are still in session, as the House has left at least for the time being. Of course, we are close to the holiday season, when most Members assumed they would be home with their families, where we want to be. But instead we are here. I think it is worth noting why we are here. At the risk of hurting some muscle in my body here, I want to lift what we are now considering in the Senate in the closing hours: 4,000 pages--4,000 pages--that come to us at the close of the session; 989 pages on the appropriations for the Department of Defense, about 1,628 pages on the Defense authorization bill, and roughly 1,400 pages on the Deficit Reduction Act. I can tell you, having been around Congress for a few years, that within these pages are things which will come to embarrass us. Some of them we know. Some of them we will learn after we leave. Of course, people who are following this debate say: Well, Senator, haven't you sat down to read all this? The honest answer is, it is physically impossible because good craftsmen of legislation realize that changing punctuation in the law can change the meaning of the law, and so what appears to be just a cosmetic change on a page here turns out to have dramatic consequences. So we try our best.…”