Political Quotes

“I will be brief, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Just to set the record straight, actually, we did have hearings on this, and we did have markup hearings on this back in June of 2011. We dug into it at that period of time. The legislation, essentially the same, just in a different cycle, is, in essence, what we have before us today, so we have had that opportunity. But I will say this. If we see this legislation continue on the floor today and if we see this bill actually pass today, I extend to the gentleman and the members of the committee--or anyone on the other side of the aisle--that my door is open to try to make changes to it that you see appropriate, to make it have the flexibility that you think is not in the bill, which I think is in this bill, and so on and so forth. So I stand ready to continue to work with you on it. But I think that after the hearings we have had and the importance of this legislation, now is the time to move forward. One last point on this, and I think the chairman of the committee made the point, but let me just reiterate this. At the end of the day, it does not add any additional costs to the American taxpayer. What this bill does is just make transparent the cost that is already there.…”