Political Quotes

“I stand as the chair of the full Appropriations Committee to respond to two Portman amendments. I will comment on one and speak to the one related to automatic CRs, which is in the jurisdiction of the Appropriations Committee. First I will speak to the dollar-for-dollar cuts, which the Senator from Montana and chair of the Finance Committee spoke to. I want to say I absolutely support his position. As an appropriator, I agree with his arguments. The dollar-for-dollar cuts would make the Boehner rule permanent. It would raise the debt limit by mandating a $1 trillion cut in spending. This amendment could allow the minority of 41 Senators to dictate the fiscal policy to the majority. I also oppose the Portman amendment related to automatic continuing resolutions. What does the amendment do? It sounds good. I must say I have great admiration for the Senator from Ohio. He has a well-known reputation for working on a bipartisan basis. When he was in the House, he worked so well with my colleague Senator Cardin. I look forward to having these kinds of discussions and seeing how we can work out some of these issues. In listening to the debate, I think we are all in agreement of our goals, but we disagree on the means. As I read it, Senator Portman's amendment says if Congress fails to pass an appropriations bill or a continuing resolution related to it, instead of a government shutdown, automatically a continuing resolution would go into effect. Now that sounds good.…”