Political Quotes

“Those are my thoughts; my thoughts and my hope. I think that lame duck sessions, in my experience, have not been particularly productive, particularly when you are going to have a change of administration. Whether it is Senator McCain, Senator Clinton or Senator Obama, we are going to have a change of administration. I expressed it as a hope, and we are going to work toward not having a lame duck session. Let me go back and answer your question. I think we had a week delay on the supplemental, and I think the week of May 5 is the week we are looking at for the supplemental. As you know, I said the last week in April, the first week in May. That is the first full week in May, so I guess I am still accurate. We are on for that week hopefully on the supplemental, which will be timely in accomplishing the objective of getting dollars in time before the depletion of the funds that have already been appropriated. With respect to the appropriations process, obviously I will be discussing with Mr. Obey and with Mr. Spratt, if we fail to pass a budget, we have to give the Appropriations Committee a figure to mark to. My thought would be that we will do as we have done in years past, deem that the House budget will be the numbers to which they will mark. But we have not made that decision at this point in time.”