Political Quotes

“I am happy to do it. I wish to finish my remarks, but the real problem is that the House is having difficulty passing the Senate bill because an awful lot of liberals don't like it, and an awful lot of conservative Democrats don't like it--if there are any conservative Democrats in that body; there may be a few, although there aren't any over here in this body. The only way they can get the bill back over here with their small reconciliation package that they talked about-- the only way they can do that is by abusing the rules. Frankly, if they had the votes to pass it, it would have been passed by now. The Senator from West Virginia and I both know they don't have the votes. Let me just continue on with my remarks. I mentioned earlier that the reconciliation process has never been used to enact sweeping social legislation that did not have wide bipartisan support, but I also wish to emphasize that such major legislation has had wide bipartisan support even when passed through the regular legislative process. That is the best way to achieve such significant change that can impact so much of our economy and virtually every American family. The Senate, for example, passed the Social Security Act in August 1935 by a voice vote. The legislation creating the Medicare Program in July 1965 received 70 votes, a bipartisan vote.…”