Political Quotes

“Madam President, we are here to talk a little bit about immigration reform and maybe a little bit about the looming government shutdown. I want to start with the government shutdown because it is intrinsically linked with some of the arguments that are being made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. What we are trying to do is fairly simple. We are trying to fund our servicemembers. We are trying to fund our veterans. We want to get a long-term authorization for the CHIP program. The CHIP program actually expired last year, but there were sufficient funds on account to continue funding, but they are running out. In States like North Carolina and other States, this program is going to start being shut down if we don't get much needed resources. We are talking about a multiyear reauthorization for the plan and, of course, continuing to fund the National Institutes of Health, which is a critically important part of combating diseases, finding treatments, and cures. That is all we are trying do with this spending bill. The other thing we are trying to do is create a bridge for a month so we can get our colleagues on both sides of the aisle talking and hopefully get some certainty in terms of funding going into next year-- if it were up to me and I think up to Senator Lankford, for several years, but it would be good to get some long-term certainty in the funding process because right now these continuing resolutions are killing us. We are living paycheck to paycheck.…”