Political Quotes

“I wish to speak on this for 2 minutes now, because I know people are anxious to vote on final passage of this important bill, and I will speak at length after the vote. I just wish to say thank you to the two leaders who are on the floor, Senator Menendez from New Jersey, Senator Johnny Isakson from Georgia. They were the team who brought the coalition together when it was very hard--and still is difficult--to build a coalition on any subject. This subject is complicated. It is difficult. There are very strong feelings on all sides. There are different parts of the country that look at this in different ways, and there are debts that need to be paid attached to this program. So this was not an easy negotiation, and the leaders both did an extraordinary job keeping us on track. No. 2, this compromise--and that is what it represents--the best of the compromise was, in fact, debated at length on this Senate floor; it was debated at length in the House of Representatives; and it was voted on 67 to 32 in the Senate favorably and 306 to 91 in the House favorably. The minority view--represented by the Senator from Utah, which would throw this bill into a conference committee right now--is not what the American people want, and it is not what the majority of Republicans or the majority of Democrats want, as demonstrated by the vote I just put into the Record.…”