Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I understand the gentleman said a lot of things about reaching bipartisan agreements and all of this sort of stuff, and the Senate needed 60 votes. They didn't introduce a bill. Not a single appropriation bill was introduced. {time} 1215 They had the same 60-vote requirement last year, and they passed a lot of bills last year. The reason they didn't pass bills is that the President of the United States wouldn't come to the table and agree on caps. They could have done the same thing we did. We are an independent branch of government. We are the Article I branch of government. We appropriate money. We spend money. But the Senate has not done its work. If you brought the bills to the floor and couldn't get 60 votes, we get it. But I will tell my friend that there is great frustration. For the first time since my friend has been a Member of the Congress, we passed 96 percent of the funding for government by June 30, otherwise known as 3 full months before the end of the fiscal year, giving the Senate a lot of time. But, no, we had to wait and wait and wait until the President sent down Secretary Mnuchin, and we finally made an agreement on 302(a)s, in other words, the caps, what we were going to spend. With all due respect to all this talk about bipartisanship and that we need to work together, that is, of course, true. It was not true in the Congresses when my friend's party was in the majority.…”