Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am in opposition to this so-called Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act, largely because it's neither. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) is correct. He says there have been 16 hearings at the Ways and Means Committee, but never once has there been a conversation. That's the important matter for us to consider. There has been no give-and-take in this legislation. This was brought to the floor today in the manner of ramming it through the House in order to protect talking points as we move into the new year. If we don't act, 160 million Americans are going to see a tax increase, with working American families seeing a tax increase of up to $1,000 in 2012. We need to extend unemployment insurance to assist millions of unemployed Americans, and we need to fix the Medicare physician payment rate to ensure that seniors have access to their doctors. I am also opposed to this proposal that they offer today. While I support eliminating the scheduled reduction of 27 percent in Medicare payments to physicians, this is the wrong way to do it--offsetting it by taking $17 billion away from hospital funding. Now people in America rightly ask: How come it's so difficult to get something done in Congress? We're going to quibble today with the 8.6 percent of American families who are without work about extending their unemployment benefits.…”