Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Speaker, the majority leader says that his side is against the Affordable Care Act. He's said that regularly since it was first considered. He's said they're against revenues. Mr. Speaker, he's said that repeatedly, and the majority party has said that repeatedly. Of course, pursuant to the Republican tax bill of '01 and '03, rates went up on January 1. They went up substantially. You could look at it half full or half empty, and the gentleman looks at it, as we increase $600 billion in taxes--actually, taxes would have proposed $4 trillion had the tax law that was in effect at that time stayed in effect. The gentleman knows that, so you can look at it as a tax increase or a tax decrease, ensuring that middle class taxpayers didn't get an increase. The American people, of course, 80 percent of them say what we did is the right thing. Now, we had an election, and the gentleman's position did not prevail in that election. But we are still hoist on the petard of saying, We disagree; do it our way or the highway. The gentleman mentions the SKILLS Act. I wish we'd had an opportunity. We need to make the programs more focused and more effective, and the gentleman is absolutely right on that. Unfortunately, the majority gave no ability to have bipartisan input into that bill, and so its prospects for passage are almost minimal, maybe nil, so that the gentleman's party continues to, in my view, keep us in this gridlock.…”