Political Quotes

“Mr. President, if I might add one point. I think the Senator from Minnesota did point out that there are a significant number of jobs that are associated with this industry--in fact, one-half million jobs. They are American jobs. They are jobs in the heartland of this country. They are jobs that help grow the economy, make it more prosperous. It strikes me, at least, that what we ought to be looking at is more jobs in this country and less investment in foreign regimes, where we get a lot of our energy today. Mr. President, $1 billion a day is what we send outside the United States because of our addiction to foreign oil. We have a dangerous dependence upon foreign energy, and we have a fuel that, as I said, displaces 445 million barrels of oil every single year--more than we import from Saudi Arabia. That is a pretty remarkable number when you think about it. We had a debate here a few weeks ago on the floor of the Senate about whether we ought to change tax policy with regard to oil companies. The decision was reached that we should not do that; that it would be punitive, directed at oil companies. We decided, too, that it would raise taxes on gas for people in this country. I would make the same argument today. We are talking about a tax increase--a large tax increase--which we know is going to get passed on. So we are talking about raising taxes on consumers at a time when they can least afford it. We have today 3\1/2\ to $4-a-gallon gasoline.…”