Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman, who is my friend, and I thank him for that. As I was saying, this is a failure. We knew that these 12 bills have to pass. Why? Because if they do not, government shuts down. It stops serving the American people. It stops maintaining security and health and welfare of our people. So we know these bills have to pass. But notwithstanding that, year after year after year, we come to this point where we are adopting a CR. It is really a CI, congressional irresponsibility. Now let me say that I generally speak of the Congress, but very frankly, Madam Speaker, we have exercised our responsibility in this House. We passed 9 of the 12 appropriation bills and sent them to the Senate. {time} 1615 The Senate, Madam Speaker, has not sent a single bill to the House, not passed a single appropriations bill through the United States Senate. They have passed through some in committee. I heard my friend Tom Cole speaking earlier on the rule. He is my friend, and he is a Member I respect. He is a member of the Appropriations Committee and the Rules Committee. He is a Member who respects this institution. But I disagree with him very much about why we are at a CR. We passed overwhelmingly 75 percent of the appropriation bills before August 1 and sent them to the Senate. They have neither acted on those bills nor have they acted on their own bills and asked to go to conference.…”