Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4. The special interest bills that make up this package have all passed the House before and went nowhere in the Senate. This is not just a waste of time, it is a waste of taxpayer money. Americans work hard for their money, and here we are wasting time, and everybody knows that. This legislation is simply a gimmick. It hurts me to even say that, but it is, in fact, a gimmick. The Republican leadership in the House cannot fool the American people by passing the same bad bills over and over again. Just because Republican leadership has slapped the word ``jobs'' on this bill does not change the fact that the bill will not create jobs, and they know that. We each represent 700,000 people. Those people have sent us here with the mission of making their lives better. The legislation we are considering today will not help the people we represent. This bill would help big corporations. Let me give you an example. Under this legislation, private companies would have the ability to weigh in on agency rulemakings before individual citizens and most other stakeholders. That means that oil companies could weigh in on drilling regulations before the American public even gets a chance to submit comments. Another section of the bill would explicitly prohibit the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from taking into account benefits when providing total cost estimates for proposed and final rules as required by the bill.…”