Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today in support of what, frankly, is an egregious example of why folks get very frustrated with Washington and what happens here; that is, what has been described as one of Washington's most wasteful programs--the duplicative USDA catfish inspection program, which was slipped in the farm bill in 2008. All other fish species are inspected not by USDA but are inspected in this country by the FDA. Yet, added to the 2008 farm bill was a provision to create a special office within the USDA for the one species of catfish. We know they are bottom dwellers, but this was something that was done to protect domestic catfish producers, and it was something that is wasting taxpayer dollars. There have been 10 GAO reports, each finding that this inspection regime--set up especially for catfish but no other species--is duplicative and is a waste of taxpayer dollars. The good-government groups, such as Citizens Against Government Waste, Taxpayers for Common Sense, the National Taxpayers Union, and many of the other groups that my colleague Senator McCain cited on the floor that are supporting the resolution to disapprove this duplicative rule, have called this program one of the most demonstrably wasteful and duplicative programs ever created. Boy, in Washington, that says a lot, to call something one of the most demonstrably wasteful and duplicative programs ever created.…”