Political Quotes

“Mr. President, just days ago, we saw the text of this legislation in its entirety. We saw that it contained, among other things, more than 600 pages of earmarks, totaling over 6,000 earmarks. It spends a lot of money. It is significant legislation. Whether you love it or hate it, you can't dispute the fact that the legislation does a lot of things in government; it funds a lot of things in government. There are a handful of us who tried to get votes on amendments because, after all, if this is to be put together by one committee of the Senate without other Members having the opportunity to offer up amendments and debate it and discuss it, we are neither a deliberative body, certainly not the world's greatest legislative body, but it is hard to even call us a legitimate, authentic legislative body more than a rubber stamp for the Appropriations Committee if we are not allowed to offer modifications to what the Appropriations Committee, in its infinite wisdom and glory, decides to put on the floor of the U.S. Senate. This has always been a distinguishing characteristic of this body. It is different in material respects from the House of Representatives. It is different in that each State is represented equally, allowing each State to be represented as a State, and it is also different in that it is a body where we are supposed to allow for open amendment. We have been blocked out of this. We offered up, just moments ago, eight Republican amendments.…”