Political Quotes

“I rise to visit for a moment with my colleagues, both Republican and Democratic, about the ongoing debate we are having over the appropriateness of having policy issues debated and then decided in appropriations bills. We are now at the stage in our legislative process in which it looks as if we are going to complete our work on the final spending bill for the fiscal year that ended a few months ago and that by December 11, when the continuing resolution concludes, we very well may have an appropriations bill that takes us into the new year completed. There are some in the Senate who have argued that within this appropriations bill there is no place for policy riders, for provisions in that bill that direct in a more specific way how we spend money. I would say that is a terrible mistake on the part of Members of the Senate to reach that conclusion, and I would say it is wrong for our country. It is wrong based upon the Constitution of the United States that creates three coequal branches of government. In the legislative branch, we know that our role is to legislate, to create the laws, to appropriate the money. There cannot be a distinction between legislating and appropriating money. They end up being the same thing. When we appropriate money, we are directing an administration to conduct itself according to that appropriations bill.…”