Political Quotes

“Yes. That is a major portion of this bill. That is what this is about. It says that we ought to pay that. And if not, we ought to have the appropriate rationale so that a majority vote, a simple majority would say no, we are going to waive that. A couple of points. The Senator said that this is placed on the authorizers. After a great deal of discussion, we felt that was most appropriate because the mandates come from the authorizing committees. They do not come from the appropriations committees. This puts that responsibility on the authorizers. It will probably cause them to have to work more closely with the appropriators, which I think is a plus. You say other than ruling it out of order, could not we just have the information made available to us to help us in our decisionmaking. But that, to me, is a damage report. We want to stop the damage. And we talk about the responsibilities. Again, we would have that information. Yes, we should pay for it. But if we do not, again, you can come and seek that waiver. The point of order, though, is not self-initiated. It must be placed by a Senator.”