Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, America is a great and a good country, but sometimes in its past it's made great and lamentable mistakes. H.R. 4783 offers this Congress the opportunity to correct some of the worst mistakes that we made in the course of our long and distinguished history. There are three parts to this legislation: a component to deal with African American farmers, and that ought to be passed; a component to deal with Indian water rights, and that certainly needs to be passed. Finally, the largest portion of this bill deals with the so-called Cobell lawsuit. For those of my colleagues who are not familiar with that suit, it's a 14-year lawsuit. It involves almost half a million claimants. It deals with accumulated mistakes and misdeeds of the American Government from 1887 to the present. We have twice in the course of this lawsuit had Federal officials held in contempt of court in two different administrations, one Republican and one Democrat. And, frankly, the previous administration thought we should settle this bill at between 8 and $11 billion. So, frankly, this settlement is a bargain for the American taxpayers, and we are going to hear a lot of arguments against this particular piece of legislation. Some people will say it costs too much. The reality is, number one, it's fully paid for.”