On the recordJune 26, 2013
I want to say how much I respect the Senator from Florida. I respect his viewpoint. I respect the amount of effort he has put into this issue, which is a very difficult and a very complex issue. He speaks from the heart. I have never questioned his motives, and he has worked very hard to put together the very best piece of legislation that I think could have been accomplished on this Senate floor. I wish I could stand with him in terms of final support because I, too, believe our current system is broken, that it needs to be addressed. The status quo is not an option. We will continue down the same road, and only to a greater degree than where we find ourselves today. I am deeply concerned. For me, the most difficult of things to work through--it finally came down to the fact that, as Senator Rubio has talked about, there is a great level of distrust in this country today toward whatever comes out of Washington and whomever's mouth it comes out of. I think some of this is due to certain events that have happened in the last several months. Benghazi is still not settled. The American people still are not satisfied with what has been said about what happened in Benghazi and what our response should have been. There have been changing narratives. That feeds into the distrust. Certainly, there are the scandals--the IRS scandal and others continue to feed this distrust.…
