Political Quotes

“I rise in disappointment, surprise, and some confusion that we have this bill. We spent a week--I went to the Judiciary Committee. The bill came out of the committee unanimously. There is tremendous interest in this subject. When I have talked about it at home, I have said to my people in Maine, this is something we are going to be able to do because every Member of this body is being affected by this tragedy that is engulfing our country. This is something we are going to be able to do together and indeed we have done a lot together. We have a good bill. We have passed some good amendments. One of the President's amendments was in the bill that we passed this afternoon. This is important work, but it has to be funded--the old saying in Maine, and I suspect everywhere else, put your money where your mouth is. I was on a teleconference with some folks in Maine just 2 hours ago talking about this, and one of the chiefs of police said: It is time to move from talking about being interested in this to investing in it. We cannot solve this problem without money. It would be nice if we could. There is a drastic and dramatic shortage of treatment facilities in this country, and the only way we are going to be able to do it is to pay for it. We had a point of order on the budget. I have to tell you I am confused because I stood here less than 3 months ago when we passed the budget bill and $680 billion of tax extenders. Where was the point of order then?…”