Political Quotes

“I thank him for letting me say a few words. Tax Extenders I was listening to the debate between the majority leader and the minority leader, and I just wanted to be clear. The tax extender bill was negotiated very well by Senators Wyden and Hatch, with many of us in the committee participating, and it was truly a bipartisan product. The ideas in there, I would probably say, were half Republican and half Democratic. Senator Hatch made a very good point. He said that is only about 25 percent of the Senate. What about everybody else? If we have no amendments, no one else can legislate. I want to clarify our offer. Senator McConnell said amendments on the whole Tax Code should be allowed. That is no way to legislate. That goes the opposite way. The Finance Committee knows the Tax Code, and as a result they should get first crack at it; otherwise, we may as well not have a committee system. But we should allow amendments that are relevant or germane to the extenders. There were many extenders. Many Members who are not on the committee probably have many ideas about how to change those amendments--make them longer, make them shorter. The House actually took three of our extenders and made them permanent. Maybe that is a debate our colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to have, which would be a very legitimate debate, even though some people might say that costs too much or it leaves out some extenders, et cetera.…”