Political Quotes

“I rise today with great disappointment in both the substance and process of this legislation. We should be working from a long held medical premise; first, do no harm. Instead, Americans know this government takeover of the health care system is bad and the tactics that have been used to do it are even worse. The policies contained in the recently passed health care bill combined with this reconciliation package will raise costs, lower the quality of care in our country, shift a new unfunded mandate onto the States, and will result in health care rationing. The reasons Democrats passed this bill on a party-line vote in the Senate on Christmas Eve and late this past Sunday night in the House are because of a slew of backroom deals and arm twisting to buy up last minute votes. Now we take up the reconciliation bill to remove some of these deals so the President can claim to have clean hands. There are many other reasons to oppose this bill, aside from the unsavory deals made to secure its passage. In both its scope and reach, the combination of health care legislation and reconciliation is unprecedented. It raises $644 billion in taxes and cuts $525 billion from Medicare. The Democrats' bill contains accounting gimmicks that would make Bernie Madoff proud.”