Richard Gephardt Quotations

What we're seeing is a talking down of the economy, the suggestion of a recession, the suggestion of a slowdown in order to justify what looks like it's going to be a $3 trillion tax cut,

When I'm the nominee, ... I'm going to have Bill Clinton out on the road for me, fighting to win this presidency.

Less than 1 percent of his tax cut takes effect this year. All economists are saying it does not stimulate the economy and I would argue it would have the opposite effect,

send the wrong signal to the world community about what our priorities and standards in trade should be.

Shutting down the gun loophole will not solve all of the problem, but it is at least something we can do

Mr. Pitt is not behaving in a trustworthy manner that will bring credibility back to the market and restore investor confidence, and I again urge President Bush to ask Harvey Pitt to step aside from his post today,

My hope is that we can effectively and expeditiously receive this plan from the president, work it through the Congress, and try to make it a reality as quickly as possible,

Obviously, if he has broken rules or done something that's wrong, he will have to stand the consequences, ... Meet the Press.

If this happens, it is to me the beginning of moderate Republicans figuring out that there is no place for them in the modern Republican Party,

I have enormous friendship and respect with Tom Daschle. Always have had and always will have. And I have nothing but admiration and respect for what he is trying to do with this in the Senate. As he said yesterday, it doesn't matter where you start, what matters is where you wind up. We have different bodies and we have different ways of dealing with it,

I believe we have an obligation to protect the United States by preventing him from getting these weapons and either using them himself or passing them or their components on to terrorists who share his destructive intent,

I'm also going to bring up the economic issues, which we believe are very important,

I can tell you this: We're going to pick up seats in the House and we will hope that in the next hours, and maybe days, that we will get to the magic number that we need,

For the president to claim that spending -- as opposed to the tax cut -- is at the root of the problem is simply to pass the buck.

I get frustrated when everyone on all of this is trying to infuse political motives into these decision, ... I mean, lets get serious. We're not playing games here. This is life and death.

He is, and further than that, if he were subject to blackmail, it would have been before a lot of this stuff was publicly known,

We've got to look back on what happened and try to figure out how to do better,

It certainly wasn't an intentional mistake, ... No one understood that the machinery at the post office and the way it worked might tend to get this stuff in the air.

I think you can disagree with someone and still deeply respect them and like them, as I like the president and respect the president,

I think we've got to try our best to come together, to collaborate, try to move this budget in the right direction and get the country out of recession and start building stable, good jobs for American people.

I think we've got to stop parsing words and trying to be anything other than accurate about what this is, ... This is highly sophisticated material. It is small in size and it aerosolizes.

I think the most important thing in life, and certainly politics, is credibility, ... If you want to be credible, you have to be straightforward, and I think that was damaged.

It is a weekly, and now daily, drumbeat of rollbacks of hard-fought and hard-won progress to protect the air and the water and the wilderness and the environment of this country, ... This is the most alarming rollback in environmental efforts that we have ever seen.

I think there's a sense of urgency about getting this done and getting it done by next Tuesday when the president would have to start vetoing bills if it's not done,

Over the years, these huge contributions have come into the system and politics in most Americans' eyes today is more about money and big money than anything else, and it has to change,

Our plan will help families and businesses cut energy costs now, ... It will make America a world leader in energy efficiency, through our bottomless capacity in innovation and new technology to improve people's lives. We will create traditional and renewable sources of energy without sacrificing the environment and our children's future.

Our bill recognizes that we are in a period of economic uncertainty, so we give people immediate tax relief, which we think will help them get through this uncertain time,

Real security means keeping Medicare and Social Security strong and getting a Medicare prescription drug program. So those are some of the things that I'm going to talk about.

Part of doing this the right way and the successful way is to put together a coalition, ... Sometimes that takes diplomatic efforts as well as military efforts to get that done.

marketing scheme designed to make last year's unpopular tax cut more palatable.

I think if you get an amendment that exempts those two things, Social Security and a capital budget, you have an amendment that is workable, ... That will not be harmful in case you get into a recession.

I think it will be hard to get a stimulus bill, but I think we really need to do it, ... I don't think a stimulus bill will solve all of our economic problems, but I think not doing one would be a negative.

Yesterday, the president said there would be enough money for people's highest priorities. Despite a number of gimmicks, today's numbers strongly suggest he was wrong.

We must take immediate action to maximize the safety of all Americans, ... It is a debate about meeting the needs of our country now, not waiting for several months.

Vouchers drain funds from failing schools at the very moment when schools need these resources the most ... We must not allow 'reform' to erode the federal responsibility to support national priorities like helping disadvantaged students and putting a quality teacher in every classroom.

The problem is not going to go away by itself,

We are in a situation where we need strong bipartisan support in the United States to try to deal with these problems, ... Our highest priority is to make sure a weapon of mass destruction is not used here or anywhere.

We are locked into a process that is based on a tax proposal that was put together a year ago, when the economy was very different than it is today, ... There is a lack of willingness to adjust and modify and respond with an economic plan that is in tune with today.

We believe that vouchers, which are in President Bush's plan, do not further the goal of improving public schools,

We are working together here in the Congress in a completely nonpartisan way,

We gain courage and effort and a desire to work with you from what you have done, ... We are trying to be ... half as good as you have been in what we do.

Unbending to consensus, uninterested in collaboration and compromise, they refuse to think anew and act anew in light of the attacks because of unwavering ideological opposition to expanding the number of federal law enforcement officers,

You had a case in the Senate where we knew we had a plume had gone up. We had a letter that had the material in it. So you knew these people were exposed. There was not an understanding last week that the people in the post office were exposed. And so maybe in a way, we are all having to learn about something we don't know enough about, but I think now people see the need to err on the side of caution.

We will work to make the broken places right again. We will rebuild New York. We will work on a bipartisan package to strengthen the economy, ... will help unemployed workers in the airline, aerospace, tourist and other industries affected by the attack.

We are wasting time again today working on a bill that has been vetoed and will never see the light of day,

Don't let them fool you that we have a deal. We don't. We're not going to have a rush job here and vote for that much of a bill that we haven't read,

The whole point of what we're saying today is be cautious, be conservative, be skeptical,

The words are not particularly helpful, ... Obviously, this stuff gets in the air and stays in the air and it is small in nature, which means it's milled. You can call it anything you want. It's not safe stuff.

The right way includes an immediate tax for those Americans most affected by the economic slowdown and a budget that leaves enough money to pay off the debt, invest in the needs and priorities of the American people, and keep interest rates low and our economy strong,

The same people who brought us impeachment are now bringing us Elian, ... The American people are sick of it. Enough already.

The Supreme Court has made its decision. We support and respect Vice President Gore's right to respond on his own time schedule. Until he does so, we will have no comment.

Some would argue that this is just about trade, ... I would remind them that our greatest export is not our products ... Our greatest export is our ideals and our values.

A short-term solution would be to have the federal government respond to charges of price-gouging,

Al has defined himself as someone who identifies problems before anyone else and offers solutions while others are still mulling the question, ... The hallmark of his career has been his talent to navigate great public policy challenges guided by a sharp intellect and a big heart.

Al Gore is for the McCain-Feingold bill. In fact, he said it will be the first bill that he sends to the new Congress if he's president. George Bush is really not very enthusiastic about it at all. I'm not sure it would be his tenth bill sent to Congress.

This is an exciting ticket. These are two very able and qualified individuals.

This is happening without a budget, without hearings, without input from anybody,

This is a test for our country, ... This Week.

This is not something where I go off and make decisions. I have to talk to my colleagues, talk with the caucus. We have an ethics process in this House that has to be respected. We're going to do these things in the right way,

This could have been a bipartisan bill, but the White House squandered that opportunity, ... Instead, what we have is a Republican bill, a bill that will now go into an endless conference committee. This is exactly what the HMOs want.

This administration needs to stop behaving like the United States of Saudi Arabia and it needs to start mobilizing international pressure to get Saudi Arabia to stop funding, training and breeding global terror in the first place,

This is a national emergency. This is a national crisis, and we cannot worry about what the budgetary costs are. We have to get this done,

This is a Bart Simpson Congress: underachievers and proud of it.

This is a bad bill. It is not worthy of passing, ... It is all focused on production ... and it's not paid for -- and that, in and of itself, is enough reason to vote against this bill.

A lot of employees have lost their jobs and, as I understand it, their pensions are probably in question now. This needs to be looked at.

America needs a serious economic discussion that brings in the best minds and a wide variety of opinions focused on the best way to create long-term economic growth and opportunity for all Americans.

They are rushing, ... I suppose because they are worried about the facts getting out, they are worried about this budget being examined.

This plan has failed. We should not keep half of a failure or a quarter of a failure, ... Let's change the policy and do something else.

The Republicans say the government ought to be run like a business, ... How many businesses give dividends without knowing their profits?

There is now widespread agreement that this measure will do next to nothing for the American people,

It reveals that the tax cut is so big it gobbles up virtually the entire available surplus, forcing cuts in vital programs like Medicaid and the State Children's Health Program.

It's Orwellian. The pharmaceutical lobby writes the bill, passes it, and then they run ads thanking them for passing it.

It's slick, it's full of pretty, colored pictures,

Everybody needs to decide this on their own, what their conscience dictates, what their hearts and minds tell them to do,

It's in a state of flux, ... It's in a state of negotiation.

They've scheduled two hours debate on a trillion dollar tax cut. That's crazy.

The new president came to town saying he would change the tone and change the climate in Washington, ... I guess we didn't realize it was the actual climate that he wanted to change.

I'm getting pessimistic. I'm getting worried. We have about a week left -- at the most two weeks -- and we aren't to first base,

I'm seeking the presidency because foreign policy isn't a John Wayne movie, where we catch the bad guys, hoist a few cold ones and then everything fades to black,

In an era when our gravest security threats are covert, when troops must be committed on the basis of scraps of intelligence, not flag-waving invasions from overseas, how can we compromise the integrity of our word?

I must tell you I am ashamed when top leaders in this country and citizens of this country and even the president of the United States suggest to the people of this country that there should be an amendment to the constitution to take away rights from people rather than giving rights to people,

Instead of providing new ideas or honest answers to the economic downturn we are facing, Bush and Cheney offered empty rhetoric and blamed others for the recession.

I hope now that the Administration will rethink this approach and submit a fast track bill that accounts for labor, environmental, narcotics enforcement and human rights issues.

I plead with members, turn down this budget, and let's do a budget that doesn't send this country back into deficits,

In order to address this problem we need a balanced program, ... The program we are announcing today, we feel, is that balanced program. We have worked hard to roll out a set of policies that will address our short and long-term energy needs.

inexorably tied to Persian Gulf oil and old energy.

I suggest to members that we're making a mistake with this budget, ... It's a $2 trillion-plus tax cut that mostly goes to the richest Americans.

I think now that it's passed, we need to let it go into being and then see the problems and then try to fix them,

I don't think most members have figured out how they are going to vote for it,

I don't think there is a way to prove that, but I think we all suspect that, ... I think it is clear that these are people that are both up to no good and people that knew what they are doing.

How many jobs will we lose in this country before George Bush loses his?

Government needs to act in the name of their safety,

This heinous crime deserves the condemnation of all Americans,

And politically he has to stand the consequences with his constituents in California, who he is going to talk to in the next few days. But to rush to judgment now and say we know this or that or the other, we don't know a lot of these facts. A lot of it has been rumor and innuendo.