Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to talk about an amendment I hope ultimately will be given a chance for consideration on this very important legislation we are working on right now. I commend the chair of the Finance Committee for his good work on trying to focus this next round of job-creation activities that will be created, I believe, as we move forward on extending some of the tax provisions that expired last year. Some of these tax provisions were part of our stimulus bill that, about a year ago, we passed to help jump-start job activities; a stimulus bill I sometimes think the American public--perhaps we never explained. In fact, close to one-third of that bill was tax cuts, another third was direct assistance to States and localities, and the final third was a series of new initiatives, many of which are just now starting to come to pass. I can recall, about a year ago, I came to the Senate floor as we were debating the stimulus, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to talk about fiscal accountability; to talk about our long-term outlook; and to make some recommendations on how we might better track the performance and outcome of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, what most folks commonly refer to as the stimulus. Here we are 1 year later and unfortunately it appears critical Recovery Act reports and plans have gone missing or have been long ignored or were never fully developed in the first place.…”