Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I know we have been switching back and forth. As someone who has the opportunity to preside more often than not on these kind of days, I know they are anxious to speak as well. I will only take a couple moments. I appreciate their courtesy. A little earlier today we passed a conference report that extended the payroll tax cut. While I am glad the payroll tax cut was extended, I voted against that conference report because, unfortunately, we did not pay for that tax cut. I believe we could have found ways to pay for it--a surcharge on millionaires, tying this to a means test so it could have been more coordinated. But also in that action for those parts of the legislation that we passed that we did pay for, things such as unemployment benefits, we once again targeted a group that I think for too many in Congress becomes the payer of first resort, not payer of last resort; that is, our Federal employees.…”