Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Speaker, this bill has nothing to do with creating jobs, reducing our deficit or bolstering our economy. It addresses, instead, the completely fictitious claim that legislation is needed to prevent the Federal funding of abortion services. This bill has been falsely advertised as a mere codification of existing law prohibiting the Federal funding of abortion. I have always opposed the unfair restrictions on Federal funding for a perfectly legal health care procedure, but this bill goes far beyond prohibiting Federal funding. The real purpose and effect of this bill is to eliminate private health care choices for women by imposing significant tax penalties on families and small businesses when they use their own money to pay for health insurance or medical care. This tax penalty is intended to drive insurance companies into dropping abortion services from existing private health care policies that women and families now have and rely upon. This bill claims that a tax credit or deduction is a form of government funding. It follows that tax-deductible charitable contributions to a church, synagogue or other religious institution are also government funding--a position my Republican colleagues have never taken and that, if taken, would prohibit tax deductions for charitable contributions to religious organizations because they would then be violations of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. You can't have it both ways.…”