Political Quotes

“Mr. President, what is this--the third day this bill has been on the floor? There has been no scoring of the bill by the Congressional Budget Office, so no one knows what the official scorekeeper of the Congress has to say about this bill. But I would say that my amendment does not appropriate any additional money other than the money in the bill. Indeed, this leaves it up to the Department of Homeland Security within 120 days to render a plan, and then under the underlying bill, you can transition after 10 years from RPI status-- registered provisional immigrant--to legal permanent resident by substantial completion of a plan we do not know anything about. I mean, I do not think we are the experts in how exactly this should be done. I would hope that technology, which I think is fantastic--what answers that may provide to us 10 years hence in terms of how to accomplish the goals. But to suggest that somehow this legislation, which I have complimented on numerous occasions that it represents a substantial step in the right direction--to say that we cannot touch it, we cannot change it because eight Senators got together and decided what it should be, is preposterous. That is exactly what we are supposed to do. We ought to have a regular process to debate it and vote on it. But we should not be sort of suggesting ``been there, done that; you had your shot in committee'' and then not allow this process to move forward.…”