Political Quotes

“as indicated in this chart, 51 days ago the Senate passed its budget. It has now been 51 days. So why are Republicans standing in the way? A picture is worth a thousand words, and that is the picture. Common sense and more than two centuries of history dictate the next step would be to go to conference and try to find common ground between our budget and the budget passed by the House of Representatives. The conference committee is one of the oldest traditions of the entire American Government. In fact, during the first session of Congress--No. 1--on April 7, 1789, the day after a quorum had been secured and the first meeting of Congress was held, the Senate charged a committee with setting out the rules for such conferences. During that first Congress, the two Houses convened many times on conference committees to consider many different issues they disagreed on, including differences of opinion over amendments to the Constitution, differences of opinion over legislating as to what the courts should do, and looking at bills that created a post office and the Treasury Department. All those were bills, one passed by the House and one passed by the Senate, and they got together to work out the differences. In this esteemed tradition, Democrats now wish to resolve our differences over the budget in a conference committee subject to the disinfectant of public scrutiny, instead of behind closed doors, as we have done for more than two centuries.…”