Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today, I come to the floor to seek Unanimous Consent to pass a smart, tough, and effective $600 million bill that will significantly enhance the security and integrity of our Nation's southern border--which currently lacks the resources needed to fully combat the drug smugglers, gunrunners, human-traffickers, money launderers and other organized criminals that seek to do harm to innocent Americans along our border. The Senate first passed this bill last week by unanimous consent. Last week's vote ended an impasse over how to pay for this package that all of us agree needed to be passed as soon as possible. At first, the House proposed a border security bill that was not fully paid for and, thus, was unacceptable to many in the Senate. And, here in the Senate, many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanted to pay for this bill by diverting critical funds from the stimulus bill, The Recovery Act. This too was unacceptable because border security does not need to come at the expense of programs that create jobs for millions of Americans. As important as border security is, we should not be taking away jobs from firemen in Buffalo and teachers in Syracuse in order to hire more agents in El Paso. That is the worst kind of robbing Peter to pay Paul that was simply an unacceptable way to pay for increased border security.…”