Political Quotes

“I have said on this floor on a number of occasions how the chairman and ranking member of the full committee and how the subcommittee chair and the ranking member of the subcommittee have worked together for more than a year to come up with a program that we thought would be the most fair for this country. I say to my friend from Arizona for whom I have the deepest respect, and my friend from Texas for whom I also have great affection, in years past we did not go through the turmoil of coming up with 95 percent for all States. In years past we just decided how many votes it would take to get a bill passed. Some States did very poorly. When I started in this process, some States got less than 80 cents' return on every dollar. It was moved up to 80, then 85, then 90.5. We have taken this gigantic first step from the last bill, which had no increase, for 95 cents for every State. It is a remarkably fair, good way of doing business. I say to my two friends--I acknowledge it is imperfect--but we have had people who have run on computers numerous other programs to try to come up with something that would satisfy the needs of this country. How would the State of Alaska like it if for every dollar they paid into the highway trust fund they got $1 back? Alaska would suffer.…”