Political Quotes

“Mr. President, actually, I am not here to play the blame game. I am here to talk about a place where we in the Senate have found real bipartisan consensus. It is an issue that is critical to us in the State of New Hampshire and to all the Senators because, in 23 days, our country's surface transportation programs are going to shut down unless Congress can come to an agreement on critical legislation. Nearly 3 months ago, 74 Senators voted to pass a measure that would reauthorize these programs through the end of fiscal year 2013, providing much needed certainty to our States and to private industry. In this Chamber, Senators from vastly different ideologies were able to lay aside those differences and come up with bipartisan ways to pay for this bill, to streamline Federal programs, and to make our transportation investments more efficient, so we spend less on overhead, more on roads and bridges and other transportation projects. This process was not easy, as everyone remembers. It required compromise from both sides to ensure that we could put together legislation that would bring America's transportation policies into the 21st century. But if Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma, the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Barbara Boxer, the chair of that committee, can come together and figure out how to put together a transportation bill, there is no reason why our adjoining body over in the House cannot do the same thing.…”