Political Quotes

“just 3 months ago, Congress passed and the President signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending package for the year 2018. No one had time to read it, much less an opportunity to amend it on the floor. The President vowed that never again would he sign such a measure. Collectively, we lamented the absence of process and the excess of partisanship that had led to that point once again. The collapse of regular order had become the new normal, despite our usual resolutions to revive it. I am pleased to report today that the Senate Appropriations Committee has charted a different course in the months since the 2018 omnibus became law. In April of this year, I began working with Vice Chairman Leahy and our colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to put into motion an aggressive schedule to mark up all 12 appropriations bills before the July 4 recess. Thus far, the committee has passed seven of these bills. This week, the committee will mark up three additional bills, and in the final week of June, we will consider the remaining two. At the moment, we are right on schedule. What has been truly remarkable, however, is not the speed of the 2019 appropriations process but the bipartisanship that has given it new life. All seven of the bills passed by the committee thus far have garnered overwhelming bipartisan support. Most of them, in fact, have been approved unanimously. This is no small accomplishment in today's partisan political environment.…”