David Perdue: “I think I am the only one standing between this body and a vote on something that 2 years ago I didn't know existed, and…”

“I think I am the only one standing between this body and a vote on something that 2 years ago I didn't know existed, and that is a ``vote-arama'' in local Senate terms. Being an outsider to the political process, I find a lot of this very strange. I came to Washington, and now I have a new vocabulary. It includes things like ``scoring,'' which doesn't have anything to do with sports, ``vote-arama,'' which doesn't have anything to do with the carnival down the road, or ``deficit-neutral reserve fund.'' I am still trying to figure out what that is; I see the Presiding Officer is smiling up there. Then there are ``points of order.'' There is a vocabulary centered around what we are going to be doing this afternoon, but I want to speak to the budget process itself. First of all, I want to be very clear with my colleagues on both sides. I support this budget that we are going to vote on today for one very strong reason. It is a vehicle to get to tax reform in the United States. I will not speak on taxes today in the few minutes that I have, but I do want to speak about the process. What we are doing in America right now in the Senate and the Congress--and what we have been doing over the last 43 years--is losing the right to do the right thing. Let me say that again. We are losing the right to do the right thing.…”