Jeff Flake: “One minute is hardly time to speak against this bill. Let me just read a statement that was made by the majority leader…”

“One minute is hardly time to speak against this bill. Let me just read a statement that was made by the majority leader a couple of days ago. He commented on the budget that was being passed at the time. He said, ``There is only one person in the United States of America that can stop spending in its tracks, the only person.'' He was referring to the President of the United States and putting a lot of blame, if you will, on the President for not stopping spending that I had argued was going on. Here we have the President standing up and saying, this bill is bloated; this bill is far too big; it spends far too much. Yet the same people who were blaming the President for not standing up to spending are voting now to override the President when he says enough is enough. This is wrong. We ought to stand up--as Republicans at least, if not the Democrats as well--to stand up and say enough is enough. This bill spends too much, far, far too much. This bill lacks real reform, overspends, hides its real costs with gimmicks, jeopardizes trade negotiations, increases size and scope of government, and is disservice to taxpayers. It contains more than $5 billion a year in handouts to millionaire farmers and landowners. It includes the Average Crop Revenue Election program in the conference report, a program that appears to serve the purpose of ensuring commodity farmers get federal hand-outs even though crop prices are soaring.”