Political Quotes

“the function of the debate in this U.S. Senate is only on rare occasions designed to persuade other Members of the U.S. Senate to adopt a particular position. This is one of those occasions. If we reflect on previous budgets, we understand that if the majority party in Congress is the party opposite the President, the operative phrase is, ``The President's budget is dead on arrival.'' If the majority party is the same as that of the President, all reservations about a budget are withheld and that party will defend even those elements in a budget it knows to be fraudulent or unsound. In other words, most of the time we use our opportunities here, not to talk to our colleagues, but to talk either to the people of the United States as a whole or in an attempt to come up with some blithe phrase that will appear in television or in the morning newspaper. But again, Mr. President, this is not such an occasion. It is an occasion on which we are genuinely addressing ourselves to many of our colleagues on a vitally important issue on which they have not entirely made up their minds.”