Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in jest, I said to my Republican friends that I had kind of practiced this because we hadn't filled up the tree much at all. I say that seriously. We have had an open process here. You can compare it to what went on in the previous Congress, and it has been very open. I hope we can get into an amendment process. We will go back and forth. We will try to have some amendments that will strengthen this bill. This is a bipartisan bill, as indicated by the vote that took place to get us to this. The Republicans were given this amendment last night. They have had ample opportunity to look it over. If they have things they want to do to try to improve it, we on this side of the aisle want to approach this on a bipartisan basis. This is a jobs bill to create jobs where most jobs are created, by small businesses, as 85 percent of all jobs are created by small business. That is why we are here focused on this today. I hope this doesn't become a partisan exercise. It should not. The Small Business Committee has operated for a long time on a bipartisan basis. Snowe was chairman, Landrieu was the ranking member. Now it is just the opposite. Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley have always worked on a bipartisan basis. I hope we can move forward on this matter. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.”