Political Quotes

“Mr. President, over the last few days our friends across the aisle have been telling the American people that we have a choice when it comes to the extension of long-term unemployment benefits. On one hand, they are saying we can do exactly what the President, Senator Reid, and his allies want, which is to extend benefits for 3 months at a cost of $6.5 billion that we will have to borrow from somebody or we will do nothing at all. Well, I am here to suggest that is a false choice, as President Obama likes to say from time to time. We can do better than that. As a matter of fact, several of my Republican colleagues have offered their suggestions. I have in my hand a list of 23 amendments that would deal with everything from improving access to workforce training to finding a way to pay for this money that would otherwise have to be borrowed from the Chinese or other creditors of the United States and added to our $17.3 trillion debt. In other words, there are a lot of good ideas. We just have not been given the opportunity to debate them and offer these amendments and actually do what the Senate used to do. As the Republican leader said yesterday, we actually used to have committees that voted on amendments and then passed bills that came to the floor. We used to actually have an open amendment process where people could offer their amendments, and then we would debate them and vote on them. What a novel idea. That, of course, is called legislating.…”