Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, every Member of this House has sworn a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution and to faithfully execute the office to which they have been entrusted by their constituents. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act, goes to the heart of what it means to faithfully execute public office. The government exists to promote the public good, not to enrich government officials and employees. Those who are entrusted with public office are called public servants because their work should always serve the public rather than themselves. No one should violate the sacred trust of government office by turning ``public service'' into ``self-service.'' The risk of government self-dealing is heightened by the huge growth in recent years of the Federal Government and its increasing entanglement with the private economy. The risk of self-dealing increases when the government undertakes to spend nearly $1 trillion in stimulus money on private companies like Solyndra, or when the government inserts itself into the one-fifth of our economy represented by health care and dictates the terms of private insurance policies. The decisions made by Big Government can have big money consequences. Big Government can move markets. That's why we need strong rules to reassure the public that decisionmakers are not enriching themselves by investing based on insider knowledge of government policies.…”