Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in ``Gulliver's Travels,'' Swift told us of two fictional lands--Lilliput and Blefuscu--that had been at war for years over which end of the egg to open first. In Lilliput they opened the big end of the egg, and in Blefuscu they opened the small end of the egg, and the big-enders and little-enders battled endlessly. I am sorry to say that satirical depiction often reflects what occurs in this august body. We spend a great deal of time arguing about procedural niceties, about motions to commit or not commit that do not matter to the American people, and all the meantime we are bankrupting our children and our grandchildren. If I could, I wish to cut through all of the arguments back and forth because in my view most of the arguments are by design missing the point of this disagreement. This disagreement is over one issue and one issue only: Can the Senate raise our debt limit with only 50 votes or does it take 60? Everything else that is being talked about is smoke, is a side issue. The central fight is, Should the Senate be able to raise the debt limit with 50 votes or 60? I will note that my friend from Arizona questioned the knowledge of those who are objecting, and he suggested that perhaps our knowledge was lacking because this could not be done. Well, I know my friend from Arizona is a long veteran of this body, and he surely knows it was done in 1987 and 1990. This is not a hypothetical. In 1995 and in 2004 it was attempted.…”