Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this misguided legislation. First, however, I want to commend the bipartisan, bicameral leadership of our Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees for their efforts this year to restore the normal appropriations process, with careful scrutiny of executive budget requests and the cooperative crafting of bills that fund our agencies and chart their course for the coming year. Their work is reflected in the 11 bills--out of 12--before us today: a significant achievement, despite the overall inadequacy of the underlying budget numbers. The budget allocations, unfortunately, still reflect the ill-advised Republican strategy of focusing deficit reduction almost exclusively on nondefense discretionary spending, on our critical domestic investments. As ranking member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, I particularly want to thank the gentleman from Texas, Chairman John Carter, for the collaborative process he has led throughout this year. Our full-year Homeland Security appropriations bill has been finished for over a week now, making its exclusion from this omnibus all the more troubling. So, Mr. Speaker, stitching together 11 of our appropriations bills is, indeed, a positive achievement, but it is greatly diminished by the subjection of Homeland Security funding to a short-term continuing resolution and by the inclusion of controversial legislative riders, of which two are particularly egregious.…”