Political Quotes

“thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to my colleagues on the Senate floor this evening. I really come to talk about something that shouldn't be momentous, shouldn't be unusual, and should be routine around here. Unfortunately, as you and I have experienced, it is not routine. What is not routine is the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress getting its job done. Part of that job is the appropriations process, and it ought to be something we do every year on a routine basis. Every city council, every county commission, and every school board in the State of Kansas every year passes a budget and determines the spending for that school board or that city council or for that county commission. Yet, when we come to Washington, DC, over the years, it has become problematic and it has become difficult for us to do one of the basic things of a functioning government: to determine the amount of money to be spent, in broad terms, and then to fill in the spaces with what we should do for individual Agencies and Departments within that budget agreement. We are poised for a vote tomorrow, a motion on cloture. What that means to folks in Kansas is this: Should we begin the process of debating, amending, and passing appropriations bills? I am here to urge my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, to vote yes on cloture, to bring us to the point in which we can have the debate. I wouldn't have thought when I came to the U.S.…”