Political Quotes

“I rise to ask support, bipartisan support, for the Vitter amendment which we will be voting on at 12 noon. This amendment is very simple. It is very straightforward. I think it is important and makes a central point. The amendment says these funds in this bill will not be spent unless and until we have a 2012 budget, unless we start with first things first and decide what the overall budget framework is and then move forward with spending, with appropriations bills consistent with that budget. That is all it says. It is simple, straightforward, but it is an important point. Folks around America, including in the market, are scratching their heads. They look at Washington and us and the Congress and the President and see almost complete dysfunction in the complete lack of a budget, even lack of an attempt to get a budget in place, which is a glaring, maybe the top example of that. This isn't just a good, commonsense idea, something every family does, something every small business does; this also happens to be required by Federal law. The Federal Budget Act mandates that we pass a budget by April 15 of every year. We have not done that. The House passed a budget. The Senate, quite frankly, has not even tried. The Senate Budget Committee has not even met to begin to do that in regular order, through the normal process. In fact, it is worse than that. The Senate didn't even try to do that last year under the same current leadership.…”