Political Quotes

“I wish to commend the distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee for his hopes for more bipartisanship and his concern about the way the Senate is working today. I appreciate that. I think we all hope that in the new year there will be more bipartisanship. I think there are some areas where we can work together. On this issue, though, I think we have some basic disagreements, and we are still debating those and articulating our differences before we cast a vote tonight. I have said for a number of weeks now--not months but certainly weeks--when describing the bill that is before us, the prior iteration of the bill in the Finance Committee and the version in the House, that I thought that each one of them had a few things in common, in my judgment. This is my sense of the overall bill. First of all, I think every one of these bills has been a giveaway to the rich or the superrich and a giveaway to profitable corporations. I think it is excessive. We have a difference of opinion on that. This is a tax bill, and yet it will have a substantially adverse impact on health care because of one basic provision that was added in the last couple of weeks. That provision alone will cause healthcare premiums to increase by an additional 10 percent a year, and it will cause 13 million people to lose their healthcare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, including, by one estimate, 5 million fewer Americans benefitting from Medicaid.…”