Political Quotes

“the Customs bill is another in a series of missed opportunities and half-measures that have characterized this Congress. The legislation we are going to vote on today, the conference report on Customs, misses the opportunity to take strong action against currency manipulation. The bill we sent out of here had strong currency manipulation language in it; it is not there anymore. It throws up unnecessary hurdles to agreements on climate change. It basically says that any agreements the United States makes cannot take climate into consideration--on any of those agreements. No one that I know of opposes the legislation that is stuck inside this Customs conference report dealing with taxation on the Internet. We all support that. But the sad part about this is the manipulation to get it in this bill. It did not start in either House; it was just airdropped into the conference report. The reason it was done that way is everyone knew that if this matter was brought up--the Internet Tax Fairness Act--as part of it, we always had marketplace fairness. That was part of the deal. They went together. But the manipulation took place. This most important piece of legislation dealing with helping States--States are struggling. It does not matter which States they are, they are struggling. What we have are the brick-and-mortar places that can't compete with online merchandising.…”