Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to discuss an amendment I have filed to the bills dealing with sequestration. I am pleased that Senator King has joined me as a cosponsor. Our amendment is the fiscal year 2013 Department of Defense appropriations bill that was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee by a bipartisan vote of 30 to 0 on August 2, 2012. There is no doubt we must find a way to avoid the meat-ax approach to budgeting that will occur under sequestration. At the same time, we must recognize that a continuing resolution also presents real challenges for those trying to carry out the necessary functions of the Federal Government, including providing for the national defense. Continuing resolutions have become far too routine. This familiarity, however, should not blind us from the harm these stop-gap measures cause to the effective and efficient functioning of government. A yearlong continuing resolution would be just as devastating as sequestration. I am not alone in that judgment. After a New York Times editorial that claimed the Pentagon can easily absorb the cuts of sequestration, Deputy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter wrote the following in a letter published on February 27, 2013: Good management is undermined by sequestration and by something that your editorial does not mention but that is as much of a problem--the fact that we have no new appropriations bills and are living under last year's law.…”