Political Quotes

“Madam President, I am going to speak for some time and try and reengage this debate. We had an excellent debate this morning between 9:30 and 12:30 trying to find a way forward on a very important bill, the small business bill. This is the Main Street bill we have been working on. As you know, Madam President--you are a member of the Small Business Committee--we have been working in good faith up until the last few hours. It has been a good effort on both sides. I am hoping in potentially the next few hours we can work through this because we are extremely close on a very important bill for small businesses in America and for Main Street. I wanted to come to the floor to clarify a few things. Many people are following this debate. They heard the minority leader say that he was upset and some of the Republican Members were upset that they had not quite gotten amendments on this bill. That is a charge that needs an answer. I want to go over, again, this bill and point out how many amendments are already included in the underlying bill that were offered by the other side, by Republican Senators. I had in the last few hours several of my Members on the Democratic side say to me: Gee, Mary, I didn't realize there was so much in the bill and how good the bill was, but I didn't understand how many Republican provisions are in this bill.…”