Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. President. It is a delight to see you in the chair. Mr. President, let me make a brief comment on the last comment from my colleague about the work schedule of the Senate because I have been one of those folks who have decried the fact that we are dual-tracking the START treaty and the Omnibus appropriations bill here with just a week left before Christmas. I do think it is an imposition on our families and our staff that we need to be working during this period of time. I do not think there is anybody in this body who works any harder than I do. I do not claim to be the hardest working, but I am no stranger to hard work, and I am happy to be here right up to Christmas Eve if that is what it takes. But my complaint is that this is a problem that has been brought on by the Democratic leadership. All year long, we had the opportunity to do a budget. Did we ever do a budget? No. All year long, we had the opportunity to pass appropriations bills. This is the first time in my memory that the Senate never passed a single appropriations bill--not one. So now here we are, with a week to go before Christmas, trying to cram everything into the same short period of time. We have to pass a bill to fund the operations of government which will cease on Saturday at midnight. We could have done that in the last 300 days of this year, but, no, we wait until the very last minute.…”