Political Quotes

“under the previous agreement that was reached last evening--and I want to thank both leaders, Senators Reid and McConnell, for working so hard with Senator Snowe and me to try to bring our caucuses to conclusion points on this very important bill, the small business innovation bill, that we have been negotiating now for almost 2 weeks. It is a very important program that deserves to be reauthorized. This bill will reauthorize this important program for 8 years. We have been operating the last 4 years with 3 months at a time and 6 months at a time. Madam President, representing New York, you know that many of your small businesses have accessed this program, many of your universities, to acquire or to reach cutting-edge technologies that not only our Federal agencies need but taxpayers benefit from directly. This program is a job creator. It is an innovative program, and it is a job creator. So I appreciate the work our two leaders have done with Senator Snowe and myself to get us to this agreement. We will be having seven votes this afternoon. Just to recap, they will be Baucus No. 236, Stabenow No. 277, Rockefeller No. 215, Coburn No. 217, Coburn No. 281, Coburn No. 273, which is a side-by-side, I think, and Inouye No. 286. Those have already been agreed to, but, Madam President, our challenge is that we have 124 additional amendments that have been filed, most of which have nothing to do with either the Small Business Administration or this program.…”