Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this is the most closed Congress in my lifetime. Eighty- four closed rules. That means we don't debate on the floor. That is also on top of the fact that we don't debate in committee. The tax bill that was passed out of the Ways and Means Committee had no discussion, no debate, and no publication until it was brought up for a vote. The same thing is true for the healthcare bill. We need to be debating things. One of them was allowing citizens to import safe prescription drugs from Canada at a lower cost when those prescriptions were manufactured in FDA-approved facilities. I offered that amendment, and we were denied the opportunity to vote on that. Mr. Speaker, had we been allowed to vote on it, it would have passed, and Americans would have saved billions of dollars--and I said the word ``billions''--on safe prescription medication if we could crack the lock that Pharma has on price gouging for pharmaceuticals. We could do that if the majority would allow us to vote on amendments that pursue the opportunities that Americans need to be safe and secure.”