Marty Meehan Quotes

Over the past few years special interests have had a larger and larger say over who gets what in America, and the voices of average citizens are being shut out.

Real lobbying reform must end the practice of corporate lobbyists writing our laws.

We need a tougher enforcement program and, most importantly, we need to fix the badly broken ethics system.

What’s interesting is there are $12 billion of breaks in the energy bill that passed, yet we see that the sixth major oil companies in America last year made $1.1 trillion.

For three years now, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything their country has asked of them, yet President Bush still does not have a plan to win the peace in Iraq and bring our troops home.

Black History Month must be more than just a month of remembrance; it should be a tribute to our history and reminder of the work that lies in the months and years ahead.

The 55% of American households that make less than $40,000 will get a tax break of only $7 while the households that make more than $1 million will receive an average tax break of $32,000.

The worst excesses of the Congress of the 1980s pale in comparison with what is going on in Washington today.

I don’t want to remember 2005 as a year that the government heaped unnecessary burdens upon American families. Stealing from the poor and middle class and giving to the rich, while increasing the deficit, is hardly responsible.

Regrettably, it has become clear that torture of detainees in United States custody is not limited to Abu Ghraib or even Iraq. Since Abu Ghraib, there have been increasing reports of torture.

Forty-five percent of Iraqi citizens think it is morally okay to attack American troops.

Our own State Department polls say that 80 percent of Iraqis view the United States as an unpopular occupier.

Recently, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry wrote a prescription drug bill that increased their profits and did nothing to help seniors. The result: seniors are stuck with a confusing prescription drug plan that does little to help them with their costs.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if so many of these Iraqis are ready to come up and to provide the security, the police work in the country, then surely there should be no problem with putting American forces into the background instead of having them up front.

First of all, I’m in favor of making price gouging a crime, and in fact, one the reasons I didn’t vote for the Republican House version was because there were too many breaks for the oil companies.

At the same time, Republicans are pushing a $70 billion tax package that will overwhelmingly benefit the most wealthy Americans and actually increases the deficit by $16 billion.

It is never too late to regain our credibility around the world.

The reality is that we have missed a lot of opportunities in Iraq because of a failed policy.

The poorest residents of the gulf coast were most affected by the devastating hurricanes, and the poorest Americans have shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden in Iraq.