Political Quotes

“Unless it is waived. On the private sector, we say we will not be paying for that, but we ought to know the cost and impact up front. With the private sector, if the Congressional Budget Office comes back and says, ``We just cannot make an estimate,'' then no point of order can lie. The Chair will not rule. They have no alternative. It does not lie, because the CBO has said there is no estimate, and so there can be no point of order. That is the difference with the public sector. The CBO may come back and, in their report of estimate, state, ``We have tried this method and we have tried that, and we have consulted with the public entities, our partners, and this is the conclusion: Our estimate is that we cannot come to some conclusive information.'' But then we have a report. We have a report. We have not allowed a loophole that we are not going to deal with the issue of whether or not we should still fund it. It may cause us to rethink this because if in fact you have the Congressional Budget Office--and I underscore the term ``Budget'' in Congressional Budget Office--and they say, ``We don't know what this will cost; it may well be beyond $50 million,'' if we allow them the same language as in the private sector, then we are not going to deal with it.”