Political Quotes

“Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding. As the gentleman knows, we provided for reconciliation in the budget resolution that was adopted last year, so that is available to us. That has been used 22 times, as the gentleman knows, since 1980; 16 of those times it was used when your party was in the majority. You utilized that to do what the American people think is usually the case: we pass things by majority vote, up or down, and the majority rules. Now, here, of course, when the majority rules, it really does represent a majority of the country. In the Senate, of course, even when a majority votes, it doesn't necessarily represent a majority of the people of the country because obviously every State, no matter how large or small, is represented. But having said that, we believe that the Republicans, when you used it for a tax bill or welfare or other very important pieces of legislation--the tax bill obviously having trillions of dollars of economic impact on the economy--you felt that that process of passing it by a majority vote in the United States Senate made sense. We share your view.”