Political Quotes

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, and nobody is ever going to accuse the other side of having a small mind, because I have been here just long enough to remember when they railed with righteous indignation to pass legislation even though the Obama administration had issued an SAP. Evidently, that is not a standard that applies today, but it applied then. Listen, I have heard no objections to the content of the proposed legislation. What mostly I have heard is that we had a deal that fell apart and it is all our fault. That is pretty good revisionist history. It fell apart because it didn't have the votes. And it wasn't just a question of what happened on the majority side. They know full well there were minority party Members who were not going to vote for it. There was bipartisan opposition, frankly, because of all the external stakeholder opposition, because it does not work. What are the differences, the major differences? Basically, that other deal would have prohibited sale into countries--China, in particular--with state-owned enterprises. What are those? All railroads, all utilities, all airlines. That is not the way we engage other countries and change their behavior. Materially, factually wrong that we would subsidize the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, in the last 30 years, the Export-Import Bank has transferred up to $10 billion into the U.S. Treasury. Listen, I just wish people would have the courage of their convictions.…”