Political Quotes

“I want to talk about something else. I sat here, as did the Presiding Officer from Illinois, who was a strong supporter of passing this legislation that again failed because of the Senate's anachronistic, outmoded requirement of 60 votes, a supermajority. We could not get there because no Republicans--no Republicans--cooperated. We could not do today what we should do, and that is extend unemployment benefits to tens of thousands of Ohioans and millions of Americans. We could not extend the assistance to help them keep their insurance, which Senator Casey has worked so hard on, something called COBRA, so that people who lost their jobs would not lose their insurance. We could not help those physicians who are about to face a 21-percent cut in their payments. We could not stop the outsourcing through our tax system of too many jobs abroad. We could not do any of that today because we did not get any cooperation. I understand partisanship. I understand ideological differences. But what I don't understand is when I hear Republican after Republican stand on this floor and talk about the budget deficit, I am just struck. I have only been in this institution for 3 years. I was in the House of Representatives for 14 years before. I am struck by the utter hypocrisy when I hear Republicans all of a sudden decide deficits matter, all of a sudden decide everything needs to be paid for.”