Political Quotes

“the Senate voted yesterday to reopen the government. I am glad that cooler heads and bipartisan good will prevailed before too much damage was done, but where do we go from here? The leadership of both Houses needs to negotiate appropriations caps for the rest of this year and all of next year. We all need to do our part to make sure this is done immediately. As a matter of fact, half of that job is practically done. Our colleagues in the House have a promise from the Speaker of the House to consider a Defense appropriations bill at the spending level set by the most recent National Defense Authorization Act. That amount is $700 billion and represents an increase of $88.6 billion over last year's enacted spending level--a welcome development. It would seem to make sense for this body to adopt that figure in the Senate bill, and the job would be halfway done. I hope our leaders will not wait until the week after next to get us an agreement on domestic spending. Let's not approach the next few days as if the battle lines are again drawn. Rather than using the coming days to suit up for the next showdown, perhaps we can work to strengthen the Senate so that it does the governing that our Founders envisioned, the governing that the statesmen who preceded us have protected. Americans do their jobs day in and day out, and they expect the same hard work from their elected representatives in Washington.…”