Political Quotes

“Let me try to recap for just a moment because it is my understanding there may be some colleagues coming down to the Senate floor around 12 o'clock to pay tribute to an extraordinary woman and extraordinary American, Geraldine Ferraro, whom we lost this week. I most certainly want to be respectful to the Members who are coming to the floor to pay tribute to our former colleague and an extraordinary leader. But let me remind colleagues we are still trying to get to this bill, an important bill for the country, an important bill to help put this recession in our rearview mirror, an important bill that gives us yet one more very carefully crafted tool to help create jobs on Main Street, in rural areas, in suburban areas, and in urban areas all across this country; that is, the 8-year reauthorization of the Small Business Innovation and Research Program and Small Business Technology Transfer Program. This program is approximately 20 years old, first passed by Senator Warren Rudman, when a report found its way to Congress that said, alarmingly, agencies of the Federal Government, whether it was the Department of Defense or NASA or NIH, were not accessing the power and the technology of the small business community; that when they went out to do research they were just looking at research offered by either just universities and we are very proud of the work that our universities do, but they were looking at large businesses. What did GE have to offer? What did IBM have to offer?…”