Political Quotes

“Mr. President, pending on the floor is S. 743. This is a bill which, in its simplest terms, will allow the States to ask Internet retailers, when they sell in the State, to collect sales tax. Currently, every State requires consumers to pay the sales tax, but it is not collected at the point of purchase. So this legislation will respond to a 20-year-old Supreme Court decision that said to Congress: You have to write a law to do this. This is the law. Senator Enzi and I, Senator Heidi Heitkamp, as well as Senator Lamar Alexander, we have all worked together on this legislation on a bipartisan basis. This measure was before the Senate last week. It is not a long bill; it is 11 pages. It is certainly within the grasp of any Senator to secure and read it and understand it. It is very straightforward. We have had efforts made on the Senate floor to delay consideration of this measure. We have taken three votes on it over the past month or so. The first vote under the budget resolution was a generic vote: Do you support the idea or not? Seventy-five Senators voted in the affirmative--a dramatic commitment from the Democratic side and a majority commitment from the Republican side to this measure. We then faced a vote on cloture--in other words, closing down the debate--on the motion to proceed. We had that vote on Monday. Seventy-four Senators voted to proceed. Yesterday, on the actual motion to proceed: 75 Senators.…”