Political Quotes

“as he so eloquently pointed out, this is somewhat of a charade. The American people assume that what we are doing here, debating at length, has a binding commitment of some sort. But sense-of-the-Senate resolutions, as the Senator from New Mexico stated, do not carry the force of law. They do not shift a single dollar from one program to another. I guess it is the contention of the Senator from Alaska that they politicize, if you will, this process. It is heavy enough now. As I stated, it is creaking under its own weight of unending amendments, one after the other. So I encourage Members to take advantage of an opportunity. As the chairman of the Budget Committee pointed out, this works both ways. This simply says, in the future it shall not be in order for the Senate to consider a sense-of-the-Senate resolution during debate on the budget resolution. I ask my friend from New Mexico how long might this process go on? It might go on for 50 hours, but we would have substantive debates on amendments that would change, if you will--a shift of dollars from one program to another; meaningful debate instead of assumptions that we are debating things that will never become law, that will be little more than a pretext, a window-dressing effort. And all without an explanation or an addendum of some kind to stipulate that this is nonbinding.”