Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I appreciate the chairman's yielding. I want to echo his opposition to this amendment, and I want to echo his praise for the reality check that the gentleman from Illinois has provided us tonight. At various times in the course of the evening, we have talked about TIGER grants; we have talked about Amtrak; we have talked about transit investments--all of which are underfunded in this bill. I am also pleased that the chairman has expressed the willingness to cooperate in going forward. I want to echo that on my part, too, because we do believe a better day will come and, hopefully, not only at the end of the fiscal year but soon, where we get a budget agreement, where we get better numbers, and where we are able to address each of these accounts that the gentleman has highlighted. He is exactly right about the need in all of these areas. The offset is not acceptable. It is even dangerous. For that reason, I oppose the amendment, but the larger message is we have got to get a better budget number, and we have got to revisit many of the accounts in this bill.”