Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, again, I want to thank the ranking member. The letter was written by Robert Shea who worked with President Bush. It was written in June of this year. Mr. Shea still supports the bill as it has been passed by the Senate. Again, when the bill first passed here, this was a bill that did get some changes. I believe the major change that the gentleman is referring to is a provision that he authored that would have required agencies to evaluate performance goals twice a year. Those provisions added significantly to the cost of the bill. And when this bill first passed the House, it had a $150 million cost. By taking those provisions, it was reduced down to $75 million, which is $15 million a year. This is a bipartisan bill that updates the 1993 legislation. The original cosponsors include myself, several other Members, including Congressman Platts and Congressman McCaul. And in the Senate, Senate supporters that we have are Voinovich; Collins; Warner, who took the lead on this, Akaka, Senator Lieberman, and basically Senator Coburn who had an amendment. So this is a bipartisan bill. It will not add a single penny to the deficit. In fact, it will save taxpayers' dollars. I urge support of it. I reserve the balance of my time.”