Political Quotes

“I respect my friend from Arizona. He is my friend, and we have worked together on a bipartisan basis. I respect his right as a Senator and his responsibility as a Senator to speak on issues that he thinks are important to our Nation and his home State as well as to offer amendments if that is the appropriate approach he wants to use. However, we have wasted a day. We lost a day in the U.S. Senate. Yesterday was the day to begin the amendment process and we could not. Senators objected to our coming to this process and even offering an amendment on the continuing resolution, which is the Federal budget for the remainder of this year; in other words, until September 30. We know we are just days away from the continuing resolution expiring. We don't want the government to shut down; we do want to fund the government. We understand there must be spending cuts and there is a healthy difference of opinion on where those cuts should be made. The Senator from Arizona was on the floor yesterday and we spoke of this. One aspect of this bill, which I wish to address for a moment, is the Department of Defense appropriations. This is a new responsibility which I have on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and it is an awesome responsibility. Not only are we dealing with the security of the United States of America, first and foremost, we are dealing with a massive spending bill. This is larger than any other spending bill in the Federal Government.…”