Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from California for yielding. I rise in opposition to this CR. Having failed to present one of the 12 annual appropriation bills for fiscal year 2011 to the President, this body finds itself once again in the position of scrambling at the last minute to pass legislation just to keep the government running. This year is different. This year the outgoing majority wants us to accomplish much of its agenda long before Republicans take control. It would seem that if you failed to pass legislation in regular order that would fund the government for the coming year that you should at least recognize that we have had an election. And if you can't finish the work, allow those who are coming in to go ahead with their own budget. Republicans have called to cut spending to fiscal 2008 levels. This, I think, continues funding at 2010 levels. That might not seem significant until you realize that's a $100 billion difference. And when you are running these kinds of deficits, when you have this kind of debt, that makes a difference. If the first rule when you are in a hole is to stop digging, certainly the first rule when you are running a deficit like we are is to stop spending. And if we can cut it to fiscal 2008 levels rather than 2010, we should do it. We are just digging a deeper hole that we will have to fill in later and make deeper cuts later on.…”