Political Quotes

“let me first of all compliment my colleague and friend, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Spratt]. He has been obviously in a difficult position with some of his very top leadership aggressively opposing the agreement. He has also been a party on a day-to-day basis to the difficulty of being able to write this whole agreement, which has taken a period now of about 6 months. I want to thank him for his support. But I think the gentleman from South Carolina really is in a position to be able to understand what we have gone through on this, and to understand the good-faith efforts that have been made by all sides. First of all, if we want to have an excuse to vote no, Members can come up with anything they want. I am very disappointed to see some of my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle coming up with nothing more than excuses to oppose this bill that is before us today, because the White House supports it. The reason why the White House supports it is because we have kept the spirit of this agreement. Imagine this: about 4 or 5 months ago we started negotiating the entire operation of the Federal Government in an effort to balance the budget and come up with tax cuts. We ended up reaching an agreement. We kept our word to obviously let this House vote on two separate bills, the bills to cut spending to balance the budget, and tomorrow a bill to reduce the taxes and give some more power back to the American people.”