Robert C. Byrd

The administration knows what it is against, but seems to have no idea what it is for. It is trying to fight something-apartheid-with nothing.

The American people and the Congress will not support a policy of indifference to the tragedy unfolding in South Africa.

Everyone acknowledges that sanctions are an imperfect tool of foreign policy, but what is the alternative? We cannot idly sit by while the violence in South Africa increases. We cannot stand aside-unconcerned-as that nation hemorrhages…

The world goes on. Out of sight, out of mind. That appears to me to be the situation in Afghanistan.

The steel industry in this country not only made it possible for the United States to win victories in World War I and World War II and to fight in Korea and in Vietnam; but also, it was the steel industry in this country that enabled…

I have worked in the shipyards as a welder. I helped build the Liberty and Victory ships of World War II.

The great middle class is the backbone of the Nation, and it has shouldered the main individual tax burden.

Let us continue our efforts for America's self-sufficiency, so that we do not again fall victim to a crippling addiction to doubtful foreign energy supplies.

We have already seen much of the manufacturing base of this country transferred abroad, and millions of American jobs have been exported abroad because Japan has not opened its markets to fair competition by American products.

The genie is out of the bottle, and we ought to do what we can to put it back into the bottle.

I will support amendments to achieve a proper funding level because I believe that education is an integral component of our national defense.

Our country has no duty to turn tail and run if it is attacked in international waters. It has a duty to withstand those attacks, and it has done so.

Let no one doubt for a single moment that if a constitutional amendment is adopted by the two Houses of this Congress it will be a major step in the history of our country.

In a literal sense we have not been elected just by our contemporaries but we must also serve the people who are still to come in the future.

Let us be mindful, as was Hamilton, that if the Constitution of the United States is to be inscribed with new words, new phrases, and new directions, then we shall be charting a new course, not just for this time and place alone, but also…

Most of us would probably agree on changes that would do away with the postcloture filibuster, which is the real filibuster. A filibuster has really just begun when the Senate invokes cloture, as we have seen in recent years.

I think it is time that we move the Senate into the 20th century before we reach the 21st.

We cannot continue to be the invisible half of Congress. We should not hide behind tradition, but rather take every advantage available to us to prove our best-known tradition-namely, the Senate is the greatest deliberative body in the…

When it comes to investments in the Nation's future, especially education, as well as health care and infrastructure development, we must not be shortsighted. As in the past, Democrats this session will continue to stand behind proposals…

The time for waiting and hoping for administration leadership on the trade front is long past.

In the haste to control spending, we must not jeopardize the health care of our elderly citizens.

Perhaps the single most important component of the reordering of the Government's fiscal priorities must be reform of the Tax Code. In recent years, that Tax Code has treated the wealthy and major corporations far more generously than…

Mr. President, although he was with us as President but 3 short years, a brief thousand days, I do not fear contradiction when I say the United States is a greater and more powerful country today-because of John Kennedy.

Mr. President, as the leader of the free world, the United States always will be the target of those forces which seek to attack democracy and to challenge the basic principles of human freedom which our Nation represents.

We ought to balance the budget, but we ought not put an unfair burden on people who have already sacrificed, beginning with 1981, while some corporations and the rich get a free ride on income taxes.