Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Dallas. It embarrasses me when my colleague from Vermont says nice things about me, since I'm opposing this bill. I will say before I list some of my concerns that there was a lot of input asked for and received by Republicans both in the committee and outside of the committee. This is not a terribly bad bill, but it has one fatal flaw: It is not paid for. It, in my opinion, authorizes and, if the authorization is actually appropriated, spends more money than we need to be spending in an era of $1.5 trillion per year budget deficits. Mr. Latta of Ohio did offer a pay-for amendment at committee. It simply said that this bill must not increase the deficit. There was some discussion. Mr. Latta was asked to withdraw. The chairman, Mr. Waxman, said he would work with Mr. Latta. There were kind of desultory conversations at the staff level, until yesterday, after a markup of another bill, which at that time Chairman Waxman did sit down with Congressman Latta and myself. There were fairly serious discussions yesterday afternoon. Those discussions were not satisfactory to either side. The end result was that Mr. Latta went to the Rules Committee and offered his original amendment that he had withdrawn in committee. In its infinite wisdom, the Rules Committee chose not to make the most important amendment requested, in my opinion, in order. They made an amendment in order by myself, which is an okay amendment.…”