Political Quotes

“Passing S. 761, the America COMPETES Act, is an important first step towards maintaining our country's competitive advantage in the global economy. This legislation was written with strong bipartisan cooperation and negotiation. Many competing interests and competing views were heard during an open amendment process with Senators free to offer their ideas for improving the legislation. And, in what I hope is a sign of things to come, we were not forced to file cloture to complete action on this bill. Over the past few days, the Senate worked just as it was designed to do. We would not have achieved this great bipartisan success were it not for the hard work of Senators Bingaman and Alexander. While many Senators played important roles in passing this bill, Senators Bingaman and Alexander were responsible for raising the awareness of our diminishing ability to compete, and for bringing a much-needed sense of urgency to this issue. I also want to recognize the hard work of a number of my colleagues, Senators Inouye, Stevens, Kennedy, Enzi, Lieberman, Ensign, Mikulski, and Hutchison, who were also instrumental in crafting and now passing this legislation. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that we follow through on the commitments and investments we made today in passing the America COMPETES Act. And I am hopeful that we can continue to work together in a bipartisan manner to move this country forward.”