Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to support this legislation, but I cannot. As Mr. Camp has pointed out, this has always been a bipartisan process. When Republicans were in the majority, we regularly prepared this legislation in a bipartisan, transparent manner. It was bipartisan because Democrats and Republicans worked together to review every provision and to ensure there was no opposition to any provision and that it protected American companies. It was transparent because every provision was reviewed by the U.S. International Trade Commission, and the ITC's report was posted online for all of America to review. Every provision was subject to public notice and comment. I am happy to say, and I compliment our Democrat majority for continuing these transparent policies in this legislation, but as lead Republican originally on this bill, however, I will vote against this legislation because it violates the letter and the spirit of the Republican moratorium on earmark requests. Congress has to get a handle on earmarks. There is no question about it. While the miscellaneous tariff bill, the one we are looking at today, ought to be a model for the way other committees deal with the earmark requests, in the House rule, clause 9, the majority's overbroad and, I think, carelessly written effort to handle the earmark problem has, unfortunately, netted these provisions.…”