Political Quotes

“first, I thank my good friend, the chairman of the committee, Senator Levin. It is true that we have worked so closely together--not just the two of us but our staffs directly, the minority and majority staff. It is rare that we have a difference of opinion. When we do, we sit down and work things out, debate, and get things done. So there is a reason, as Senator Levin said, that we have passed this bill for 52 consecutive years. There are a lot of bills that hit the floor, and some are important, some are not. Some are more important to different Members than others. This is important to everybody. There is not one Senator here who doesn't want to pass a defense authorization bill. When Senator Levin mentioned that it passed by 25 to 1--we have been ready to go since that time. That is why we are encouraging people and have been encouraging people to bring amendments down. Let me mention that I personally went--as did Senator Levin--to both the majority and the minority leader. They said: Well, go ahead. You have our go-ahead to get these people to bring down their amendments. This is very important. And I have to say that one of the problems we had last year was there are a lot of Republicans--and I am on the Republican side. A lot of Republicans had amendments that they didn't think were going to be able to get heard. Well, this is their chance to do that right now. The count as of today is that 94 amendments have been filed.…”