Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am scheduled to be part of a colloquy here in just a couple minutes, but I wanted to make a comment about what the Senator from Washington has shared. I am going to use a term that maybe some people are not familiar with. We are in a ``Morton's fork''--a Morton's fork. We have heard about a fork in the road. Some people know what a Hobson's choice is. But a Morton's fork is a choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives. And if this isn't where we are right now, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know what is. As Senator Murray has outlined, a long-term CR--a long-term CR--when we have already done our appropriations work and we are not able to get to that work and instead we basically give the administration the ability to direct within the funding levels but direct as they will see fit through the end of September is something that I think many of us-- certainly this appropriator--do not really feel comfortable with. I spent a lot of time within my Appropriations subcommittee, working very hard with the Department of the Interior, to make sure that we knew, whether it was funding for wildland firefighters or what we were doing within the VA or within any of the other Agencies--that we did what people asked and expected us to do. We did those bills, and I think we did a pretty good job. Mine moved out of full committee unanimously, and then they didn't advance.…”