Talk:Arlen Specter

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• American credibility in the war on terrorism depends on a strong stand against all terrorist acts, whether committed by foe or friend.

• As a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate.

• As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

• Effective security measures do not come cheap.

• Heart disease continues to be the number one killer; cancer, the number 2 killer, not far behind. The tragic aspect of these deadly diseases is that they could all be cured, I do believe, if we had sufficient funding.

• I must say I am not pleased to have to arrange the Senate schedule around the availability of Senators who are running for President.

• If this will require a rollcall vote, I cannot predict how many rollcall votes we will have this evening, but I would not make dinner plans.

• If you are going to have to play defense all the time, you cannot have the kind of ingenuity, assertiveness, independence, and intelligence which is what has made our country strong.

• It is my hope that we will spend more time talking about the substantive needs of schoolchildren than the issue of attaching political blame.

• The essence of a democracy is a free electorate.

• The events of 9/11, as well as the war in Iraq, require our government to intensify its efforts to combat terrorism.

• The fundamental purpose of government is to protect its citizens.

• There is no doubt that our nation's security and defeating terrorism trump all other priorities.

• Today the Internal Revenue Code constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. A flat tax would be an enormous step forward.

• Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns.

• We are not utilizing the Iraqi oil for U.S. purposes. We are not asking that the Iraqi oil be used to pay our military expenses. We are asking only that the Iraqi oil be used to rebuild Iraq - that is, to rebuild Iraq for the Iraqi people.

• When the students are occupied, they're not juvenile delinquents. I believe that education is a capital investment.

• White-collar crime convictions are deterrents, I've seen a lot of that. Imprisoning heads of state is a deterrent, too. It doesn't happen very often.