Political Quotes

“I intend to vote for the motion to discharge after much contemplation and to vote to then proceed to the bill, and I do so with reservation. First of all, I applaud the administration for asking for rescission of $9 billion in unnecessary spending. I have made the statement that I would vote for a bill that was twice that size and even larger. I think we can find that much waste. But this is an unusual procedure. It hasn't been done by the Senate and the House. It hasn't been successfully done by an administration since the George W. Bush administration in 1992. Nine billion dollars is a tiny fraction of what we spend, no question about it--a fraction of a fraction, actually. But there is a big difference that has troubled me, and it is the reason I come to the floor tonight expressing concern in spite of the fact that I will vote in the affirmative on these two motions tonight. When George W. Bush proposed rescissions back in 1992, he listed specific programs that would receive specific amounts of cuts, and it was a rather thick proposal. But Members on both sides of the aisle in both Houses had exact information about what programs would be targeted and where the cuts would be made and by what amount. That is not present in the proposal before us tonight, and that troubles me because it concerns me as, perhaps, approaching a disregard for the constitutional responsibilities of the legislative branch under article I.”