Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the American people understand this bill. They understand that if working families must sacrifice to help lower the deficit, then so should the most wealthy and powerful industry in the country. If Big Oil wants to lower gasoline prices, they would put a lot less money in their stock buybacks or their multimillion dollar CEO salaries and a lot more in producing oil or they could use some of their enormous profits to lower prices. But I guess in that world greed is good. While the American people understand this bill--it is clear for them what it does--many on the other side of the aisle simply do not. Because this is such a simple, commonsense idea, they have made up arguments just to get through this debate. One of my colleagues said it would raise the deficit. Only in Washington--only in Washington--could that comment actually be made when the Joint Tax Committee has clearly made it known this would lower the deficit by $21 billion. It would lower the deficit by $21 billion, not raise it. Another argument I have heard is that this bill will somehow raise gas prices. That argument is absurd. With the big five oil companies poised to make $144 billion in profits this year alone, it means Big Oil would simply have to settle for $142 billion in profits this year to pay their fair share of dealing with the deficit, and they wouldn't have to raise gas prices 1 cent.…”