Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate the comments by the Senator from South Dakota. I think the point is, this is the most important bill of the year. I want to make only a couple of comments, and I was hoping to make these comments while the Senator from Tennessee was still here. One is that I have a disagreement because he mentioned that this bill--the most important bill of the year--is very often not considered until November or December. The absolute deadline is the end of December. I can remember getting within 2 or 3 days of that deadline in the past, and, if that happened, then our flyers wouldn't get flight pay or there would no longer be any hazard pay. There were a lot of things we would have to give up that we couldn't afford to give up. We made a commitment--and it wasn't just me by myself; it was with the Senator from Rhode Island, who is handling the bill on the Democratic side--that we wanted to have amendments. We preferred not to have nongermane amendments, and that would be my goal, if I am around here next year when we do this, to lay groundwork so that we don't have nongermane amendments. As I said, this is a bill that will pass. Normally, for things that don't pass any other way, if they can get them on as amendments, they can get them passed. We have the same situation happening right now, not just with Senator Corker but also with Senator Rand Paul and the Senator from Utah. That wasn't going to work either way.…”