Political Quotes

“Thank you, Madam President. I come from a background of having earlier been in the State senate and then, after that, the U.S. House of Representatives. Sometimes when I was a State legislator and it looked as though we were making a hash of legislation on the senate side, someone would say: Well, let's pass the bill anyway, and we will clean it up in conference. It was always tempting to send it to conference and hope that cooler heads would prevail and we would get a better work product. Sometimes that happened and worked out well, and sometimes it turned out that we didn't clean it up in conference. I am reminded of that when I hear about what is being discussed and what now seems to be the clear plan for this Democratic majority and President Obama in moving forward with health care legislation. The House has passed a flawed bill with $\1/2\ trillion in cuts to Medicare, with huge mandates to the States, with tax increases--the largest increase, really, in entitlement big government, in my memory-- and the Senate has passed its flawed version not only with those flaws I just mentioned in the House version but also special deals: a special deal for Nebraska, a special deal for Florida and Louisiana, and on and on and on. That is where we are now.…”