Political Quotes

“It is my position, in the Republican tradition of using reconciliation for very major pieces of legislation, all of your tax bills in 2001 and 2003; as a matter of fact, reconciliation has been used 22 times since 1980. Sixteen of those times it was used by the Republican Party when you were in charge. Apparently you thought that was a procedure that was appropriate to pass. As a matter of fact, Judd Gregg, when he was criticizing us for criticizing reconciliation, said, ``What is wrong with a majority vote?'' We think there is nothing wrong with a majority vote. There is a filibuster in the Senate. That is under their rules. I think those rules are impeding the work of the American people. But be that as it may, they are the rules. There is also a rule that provides for consideration of legislation through a process that is called reconciliation, a fancy name for simply saying there are things that are important, you can put them on the table, you can pass them in a time frame. But, as Americans would expect, a majority of the representatives of the American people have to vote for it. So I am not going to take that off the table. But it has been the President's expression, my expression, the Speaker's expression, the Majority Leader of the Senate's expression we would prefer not to use that, not because we think it is a wrong procedure, but because we would like to create a broader consensus if we can.…”