Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this debate has been very interesting because most of the talk on the other side of the aisle has been on the oil spill. Most of the talk on this side of the aisle has been on the increased taxes and on the increased spending. There is broad agreement that we have to respond in a responsible way to what happened, to the tragedy in the gulf. Nobody argues with that. There is broad support on this side. What we object to--and we have said this over and over and over again--is the extraneous material that is added to this bill. I didn't hear anybody, for example, on the other side defend the huge tax increases that are embodied in this bill. I didn't hear anybody on the other side of the aisle defend the $30 billion entitlement that is embodied in this bill. That is what our concern is because that is in this bill. As a matter of fact, in my opening remarks, I made reference to the tax increases, and my good friend, the chairman of the Transportation Committee, wondered about the tax increases. I pointed them out to him. They're on page 224. To his credit, he came up here and said, You're right. I appreciate that very much because that really is what the issue is. If you want to get bipartisan approval dealing with the gulf coast oil crisis, we can do that in a bipartisan way, but don't add extraneous material.”