Political Quotes

“I am delighted to have this discussion now because I think what the distinguished Democratic leader and Senator Sarbanes pointed out is that we have a problem. Whether the problem is one outlined--it may be in the bill. I don't know the specifics of that particular case and didn't hear the particular case. But the problem, and it goes on both sides of the aisle, is that we have an inequitable system today. It is not working. It is broken. We are falling down on process. The accusations of 10 minutes in my office, which I resent--I called the Democratic leader this morning. I knew he was at a meeting and I didn't get a call back from him. If the Democratic leader is going to make accusations that I haven't discussed this enough, let's discuss this today. I set aside this whole week and I set it aside starting in--the bill came out in July. I said shortly after that, specifically in November, we were going to do this in March. People, mainly from the other side of the aisle, came forward and said we needed more time. I said, OK, we will have more time. Then we went to the end of March and we said, OK, another month, or April. Here it is April. We can go back and look. I pointed out in my statement that I knew the Democratic leader and others were either present or present in part of it. We had over 20 meetings with staff on both sides of the aisle since the bill came out, going through this bill again and again and again.”