Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I am sorry we are ending this session and going home for August with this. This is an attempt to go to a conference committee with the House of Representatives to agree on how much money we as a government will spend next year. Each Chamber has passed a budget resolution. The Senate passed one. The House passed one. The basic constitutional approach to this is to bring the two together, work out our differences. This is, in fact, the 18th time we have asked the Republicans for their consent to go to this conference committee to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate and the 18th time that a Republican Senator has stood and objected. We have heard speech after speech about how bad it was that the Senate never passed a budget resolution. I bet you heard it too. So we passed one. We did not get any help from the Republicans in passing it, but we passed it. Then, when it came time to try to work out our differences with the House of Representatives, Republican Senator after Republican Senator stood and said: No, we do not want to meet with the House of Representatives, even though it has a Republican majority. Well, what difference does it make if we agree on this number? Can life go on? It makes a big difference. You see, earlier this afternoon we had this bill on the floor, S. 1243. It is a bill for the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Senator Patty Murray of Washington chairs that appropriations subcommittee.…”