Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Ohio, Senator Portman. Let me just say in wrapping up that there has been concern and there is talk about--you know, we are concerned about the United Mine Workers, which are all union miners, and nonunion miners. I am concerned about all miners, but the agreement, if you think back to 1946, was about anybody and everybody who worked in the mines and belonged to the United Mine Workers of America. That is the agreement that was made to stop a strike from happening, to basically get people back to work and keep the country moving forward. We ratified that again. We ratified it in 1974, 1990, 1992, 1993, and 2006. It has the handstamp of basically the President of the United States. I am saying that if we can't keep that commitment, if we will not fulfill that promise--and people think everybody is basically saying: Well, we are going to subsidize this. It is a Federal Government guarantee. It was a guarantee that the coal that was mined--that the mine operators would pay into the pension plan. Then, through bankruptcy court, that evaporated. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed 1 additional minute to finish.”