Political Quotes

“the next hour will be divided between the Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans will control the first half and the majority will control the final half. It was last night, but just barely, when we finally worked out some agreement on a piece of legislation we are dealing with. The House posted that last night just before midnight to meet their rules. It includes the transportation conference and flood insurance and student loans in one package. I say to all of my Senators that we are going to finish this before we leave. I hope we can do it today. We certainly can if the will is there. Otherwise, if it takes tomorrow or whenever, we have to finish the bill. I know everyone has a lot of work to do, but we have to finish this legislation. The student loan program expires at the end of the month. The highway program has to be completed by the end of the month. The work that has been done has been hard. I met with the Democratic chairs yesterday at noon. I explained to everyone that we were trying to work our way through this. These are veteran legislators, the chairmen of all of the committees here in the Senate. We talked a lot about compromise being what legislation is all about. Legislation is the art of compromise, consensus building, but when it comes right down to doing that, it is hard for Senators to give up what they want. But this is a bill that affects almost 3 million people.…”