Political Quotes

“I will try to be brief. It is getting late. A few months ago, I came to the floor and urged my colleagues to set aside partisan disputes so that we could focus on our most basic constitutional responsibility: funding the government in a deliberate and timely manner. Most observers deemed the prospect dubious at best. Who could blame them? Like so much in Washington, the appropriations process was broken, but at the urging of Leaders McConnell and Schumer and with the help of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--Vice Chairman Leahy, in particular--we began to put the pieces back together. Steadily, methodically, we passed 9 of the 12 annual appropriations bills in the Senate by overwhelming bipartisan margins. Today, I am pleased to present my colleagues with the first dividends of their cooperation. The conference report before the Senate tonight contains the 2019 appropriations bills for Energy and Water Development, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and the Legislative Branch. It contains very critical funding to help transition our veterans to the new healthcare program they deserve and have earned under the VA Mission Act. It funds nearly 200 construction projects that are very important to America's military. It does a lot of other things, but I can say that this is an important package, and it is very important in what this package does not contain.…”