Political Quotes

“Mr. President, less than 2 months ago, at his inauguration, President Biden spoke about his deep commitment to bringing Americans together. Today, the Senate will consider the first major bill of his Presidency, an intensely partisan piece of legislation. Why is the bill before us today so partisan? It is not because Republicans were unwilling to cooperate with Democrats on COVID legislation. In fact--in fact--Republicans made it very clear that we were willing to work with Democrats. No, the bill before us today is so heavily partisan because Democrats didn't want to work with Republicans. Democrats saw an opportunity to use the COVID crisis to advance a whole host of liberal priorities, and they were afraid that allowing Republicans to participate in the process would mean that some of their pet projects would be excluded or that they would have to pare back some of their more profligate spending. So Democrats decided to use reconciliation to ensure that Republicans wouldn't be able to interfere with their Democratic legislation. And let's be very clear about the nature of that legislation. Democrats would like to present this as a COVID bill. It is not. Yes, there are a handful of true COVID priorities in this legislation, such as more money for vaccines and coronavirus treatment, something that I think everybody here on both sides of the aisle supports.…”