Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Manchin, Senator Warner, and Senator Casey, who all represent a lot of these mine workers. Some of them are in the Gallery. We attended a rally with some of them the other night. Some of them we see in Zanesville, Cambridge, Southwest Pennsylvania, and Southwest Virginia. I thank Senator McCaskill for her work on this. Let's point out, again, to our colleagues what happened here. Early this year, the Senate majority leader, the Republican leader from Kentucky, said: Before we do this, you have to come up with a bipartisan bill. We came up with a bipartisan bill. We did exactly what he wanted. We had Senator Capito, Senator Portman, Senator Toomey, and a lot of support on both sides, even people who didn't sponsor it. That wasn't enough. Then he moved the goalposts and said: You have to come up with the bill through regular order. We went through regular order in the Finance Committee. Senator Warner, Senator Casey, and I in the Finance Committee called Cecil Roberts, the head of the mine workers, people like Norm Skinner from Ohio, Dave Urtest, Dave Dilly, and others came and talked to us. We had testimony. It was brought to a vote and it passed on a bipartisan vote, 18 to 8. Every Democrat voted for it and a handful of Republicans voted for it. We did that, and then the Republican leader moved the goalposts again and said: That is not good enough. You have to do something more. You have to find a way to pay for it.…”