We must continue the battle for responsible gun control, by closing the gun-show loophole, by reversing any misguided attempt to undermine the existi… - Ted Kennedy

We must cure our addiction to foreign oil. Not only does the administration claim we face the gravest crisis since World War II, they also claim they are making hard decisions to meet that crisis. Long before Afghanistan, they proposed a stand-by gasoline rationing plan, and that is all they propose today. The time for a stand-by plan is over. The time for a stand-up plan is now. We must adopt a system of gasoline rationing without delay – not rationing by price, as the Administration has decreed, but rationing by supply in a way that demands a fair sacrifice from all Americans. I am certain that Americans in every city, town, and village of this country are prepared to sacrifice for energy security. President Carter may take us to the edge of war in the Persian Gulf. But he will not ask us to end our dependence on oil from the Persian Gulf. I am sure that every American would prefer to sacrifice a little gasoline rather than shedding American blood to defend OPEC pipelines in the Middle East.

We had the attention, obviously, of Carter. He understood that the spending on health care was not unrelated to the spending on inflation. But there’s a way of dealing with both of those, and he wasn’t prepared to do that.

That was the time of Walter Reuther, whom I had known from the time he had been supporting my brother. He was very significant and a major figure, and highly regarded and respected. The UAW [United Auto Workers] had been a union that had supported my brothers, as well, so there was a good association with that. In a meeting up in Boston—and I don’t remember who had set this up, probably one of our supporters from the UAW set it up in Boston at one of the hotels—I had an extensive meeting with Walter Reuther about their proposals for developing a national health insurance movement. Would I be willing to be involved, active and help lead it? That sounded like a great opportunity to me. They had demonstrated both effectiveness and commitment, and this was something that was enormously important, and could make a large difference. We were coming out of the period of the mid ’60s, where we had passed Medicare, in ’64 or ’65. We actually completed it in ’65, but there had been discussion, even in the Medicare, that this was only a part of the whole movement of comprehensive coverage.