Political Quotes

“Mr. President, President Trump made bold claims about his intention to ``drain the swamp.'' But here we are, debating a measure that would do the exact opposite. The Senate is actually voting to kill an anticorruption regulation. This regulation was the result of bipartisan effort led by Senator Dick Lugar. Senator Lugar was my mentor when I first joined the Senate. He helped me better understand the role and traditions of this body; and he showed me what it meant to be a statesmen. Senator Lugar was one of the most thoughtful foreign policy experts to serve in the Senate. He chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, and he was deeply respected on both sides of the aisle. He understood the ``resource curse.'' How developing countries with billions of dollars in oil, gas, or other valuable minerals often had the worst poverty, how the governments of these countries made deals with huge corporations to sell their resources, but the citizens of those countries never saw the benefits. Instead, corrupt leaders would enrich themselves, rather than use the funds to pay for healthcare, education, infrastructure, or housing. Senator Lugar, with Senator Cardin, developed legislation to address the resource curse, to bring transparency to an opaque system. The result was section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act. It directed the SEC to issue a rule requiring all oil, gas, and mineral companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges to disclose the payments they make to foreign governments.…”