Political Quotes

“I thank the Presiding Officer and I thank my colleague Senator Isakson, and I am pleased to join him on the floor today as we reintroduce this bipartisan legislation, the Biennial Budgeting and Appropriations Act. I want to start by recognizing the good work of Senator Isakson because he started working on this issue when he came to the Senate in 2005, and he has introduced this legislation in every Congress since then. I have been pleased to be able to join him in the last two Congresses. I think we have an opportunity in this Congress to pass this commonsense bipartisan reform. As Senator Isakson pointed out, there is no question that the budget process in Washington is broken. Since 1980 there have been only two budgets that have been finished on time, according to the process. In that timeframe Congress has resorted to more than 150 short-term funding bills or continuing resolutions, and we all remember what it was like when the government shut down in October of 2013. It cost the economy $24 billion. It hurt small business. It hurt people across this country. That is no way to govern. While we have made significant progress to reduce deficits in recent years, we need a new way to do business in Washington. Biennial budgeting won't fix everything, but as Senator Isakson said, it is an important reform that will allow us to work across the aisle not only to make more sense of the budget process but to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars.…”