Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, nobody has any intention, of course, of holding the military hostage. Secretary Mattis and his predecessors have all believed that a CR is damaging to the military's ability to move forward and plan. I would suggest to my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, that it is equally damaging to the nondefense side of the budget. Administrators and secretaries cannot plan for what resources they will have a month out, 2 months out, or until September 30 and the end of the fiscal year. Reaching agreement is important on both sides of the budget. In addition, I would respectfully hope that we can pursue the policy and agreement that we made and on which Speaker Ryan was a principal on your side of the aisle and Senator Murray was the principal on our side of the aisle and reached agreement on the parity of increase--not parity of expenditures, because we spend more on defense, but parity of increase. Mr. Speaker, I would hope we could pursue that. It would accelerate agreement on how we are going forward. I know the gentleman is going to be working on both of those efforts. I appreciate that and look forward to working with him. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. ____________________”