Political Quotes

“Madam President, first, I want to compliment the leadership in being able to come together on a budget agreement. This was a good day for the Senate, a good day for Congress, and a good day for the American people. We now have predictable spending caps not only for the fiscal year that begins October 1 but for the following year. This is good news. It provides the predictability we need in order to have early process for the consideration of the appropriations bills. When we return in September, it is our anticipation that the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will be hard at work, and we will have an opportunity to get our work done prior to the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1. I want to explain why I think this was the right vote and why I proudly supported it. It provides a reasonable growth rate for discretionary spending. If you look at the trend line over several decades, you will find that discretionary spending has become a smaller and smaller part of the Federal budget. We held back on discretionary spending in this country, whether it is defense or nondefense needs, and those needs have grown. We have not kept up with the needs of funding these programs. This budget agreement will now give us the opportunity to set priorities and move forward with many important programs that are funded by discretionary spending. Once again, discretionary spending has grown much slower than the growth rate of our budget, generally.…”