Political Quotes

“Because you know that that is the most difficult vote; having been forced now to vote, you want to have an isolated cost vote, a vote that will force debate on cost alone when we could have had the kind of debate we had here anyway highlighting cost and getting the same result, if that is all you want. Moreover, the fact is that you are forcing a vote on full funding. You have got a full funding standard in this bill. The fact is that in the federalist system, we have always been about shared funding. We always think that if there is dirty water or dirty air that the State or the city ought to take some part of that cost. Why have you not put a provision for shared funding in the bill, if that is, in fact, what you mean? You put full funding in the bill, because, again, you want to make it almost impossible to support new bills, and some of you have said as much, have said you want these bills repealed. This is an interstate compact, my friends. By ignoring or opposing the Towns amendments, you are giving a direct incentive for the States to commit wrongdoing, one against the other. You are creating disputes among the States that will carry them into the courts. You are wiping out a central feature of federalism. You ought to own up to it.”