Political Quotes

“I rise with deference and not a small measure of awe at the continued erudition of my colleague from West Virginia. The first decision I made when I came to the Senate was to support him for majority leader, and I have not made one of equal consequence since. None has given me greater pleasure. I say on the question of amendments that it is a point of significance. When the Finance Committee reported a measure on its own, it was a two-page bill. It was not a complicated matter. It was just agreed to. It will allow us to reap the benefits of an agreement that was reached between two countries. Now, I must say with absolute openness--and I hope always to be such. Yes. It is the hope of the managers of the legislation that the Senator from Delaware, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and the ranking member, that we not amend the House bill. We have agreed to take up H.R. 4444, because if we amend it with a semicolon, it will require us to go back. The bill will go back. I do not have to tell the Senator. It will have to go to conference and pass the House again, and then come here and pass the Senate. Time has run out. This would have been a wholly acceptable and sensible approach in May, but here we are in September of an election year in the last weeks of the Senate. So the Senator from West Virginia is right. He said he has read it in the newspapers. I stand here to tell him that it is the case. I hope we made no effort to conceal this.”