Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. I have to admit that in a prior existence, when I was a debate teacher in high school, one of the things we taught our kids--because every team did it--was, regardless of what the bill was that the affirmative presented, to come up with a series of problems. In every instance, the negative team would always end with this plan, whatever the plan was, resulting in a melting of the polar icecap, which would trigger a thermonuclear war. It didn't matter what the affirmative plan had. One of the negative arguments was it will melt the polar icecap and trigger a thermonuclear war. Sometimes when we're here on the floor, I feel that we're doing those same kinds of debate cases, because it doesn't matter what the bill is; it's going to do all sorts of things. This bill simply says that, before you implement a rule or regulation, you're going to study everything, including its impact. One of the speakers who came to the floor said there are two rules that are going to be prohibited in this bill. Now, there are two rules specified in this bill that say, before you implement them, see what they will do to the jobs and the economic cost. I mean, these rules could increase the electricity costs for everyone, rich or poor, by 3, 4, 5 percent or more. We don't know. Study it first before you do it. There was a rule that was passed in my State dealing with particulate matter.…”