Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I want to talk about the healthcare bill, the healthcare issue, and talk a bit about how we can find a solution and then what the solution should look like. For the last 2 days, as a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have been in our markup. In that markup, we considered somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 to 300 amendments. Of those 250 amendments, approximately 210 of them were either compromised--an agreement was worked out between the proponents of the amendment and those who had reservations--and they were either withdrawn or became part of the bill by unanimous consent. Of the 25 or 30 that were left for votes, however, we had good debate. The members talked about their point of view. The people who opposed them gave their points of view. We had a vigorous discussion and debate and then we voted. The important thing to me--and I am pretty sure I am right about this, I kept a mental note as we went through the votes--I don't believe there was a single party- line vote in the Armed Services Committee on any amendment. The votes were sometimes more Republicans, more Democrats, but there wasn't a single party-line vote. In other words, the process worked as it was intended to work, as it should work, and as it can work.…”