Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Illinois and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I spent about a year in Alaska going to college, have been back a number of times, and it is, as the gentleman from Alaska describes, a very unique area. It is unlike anywhere else in America. When you get out into these remote villages, you may fly in in a small Cessna airplane, land on a gravel strip, as I have done, and get out, and there may only be 25 or 50 people there. That is it. By the way, in the winter, it can be--what?--50, 60 below. I have seen that. And I have seen it in spring at break where we had to try to take off three different times on a runway because it had begun to soften up. The snow had begun to soften up, and we had to get out of the plane, turn it around, get back in. Eventually, we had to leave one guy behind in order to get off the ground. This is a very unique place. The poverty that the gentleman from Alaska describes is very real. So, yes, of course, I wish we had had more time to work this out. And to my colleague from New York, he and I have worked out most of these things along the way quite well. This bill came to us late, and, frankly, we didn't have time to deal with all of the finite pieces. Perhaps we could go back in the next session and do that, but this is before us today. The problem is before us today. I believe this is a reasonable solution and that we should pass it. So, Mr.…”