Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment. After Congress privatized the United States Enrichment Corporation in 1996, we quickly learned that it couldn't survive in the private sector without continued and repeated bailouts to the tune of billions of dollars. We've given it free centrifuge technology. We've given it free uranium that it enriches and then sells at below-market prices, undercutting its competitors. We've paid to clean up its radioactive messes. We have assumed its liabilities. And what has happened to these investments? The entire company is worth less than the $100 million contained in this bill that's the next gift that the Congress is giving to this company. Adam Smith is spinning in his grave so rapidly right now that he would qualify as a new energy source. That's how violative of free-market principles this continued subsidy of this company is, knowing that there are other companies that can provide the same resource without the government subsidies. Even after the Department of Energy's recent announcement of another gift of free uranium to USEC, Standard & Poor's downgraded it to junk- bond status. Who invests in something that has already achieved junk- bond status with the exception of the United States Congress? That's what we're voting on here today, funding of a company that is now in junk-bond status.…”