Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy as I appreciate his words. This is a step in a long process. There are ample opportunities for bipartisanship. I am hopeful that after years of talking about infrastructure, for instance, and having Lucy pull the football away-- President Trump said he would like to do it, but we were incapable of moving forward even though there was a broad consensus, actually, on both sides of the aisle--I think President Biden is prepared to roll up his sleeves and do that with us. And the contrast between what we saw with President Biden opening up, talking to Republicans, leveling with the American people; and yet, at the beginning a year ago, we had documented evidence that Trump refused to acknowledge the urgency of the coronavirus. He soft-pedaled it along with a bumbling result where tens of thousands of people have died--maybe hundreds of thousands of people-- who didn't need to die. We have seen it in other countries. We are moving forward and I look forward to having opportunities with our Republican friends to join us. The reconciliation process is one step forward. I can't help contrasting it with how we have seen Republicans use reconciliation. I was on the Ways and Means Committee while they were literally writing the bill as we were meeting late into the morning, changing it as it went on. They didn't know what was in it. And that produced almost $2 trillion worth of deficit from people who are now fiscally conservative.…”