Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it has been 86 days since the Senate passed its budget. We have been through this on several occasions. We have had Republican Senators come and criticize the Republican leadership here for not letting us go to conference. They talked about their wanting regular order so we could move forward in dealing with the financial crisis facing this country, but they have ignored us. We are proud of the budget we passed. It was hard, but it reflects our priorities: protecting middle-class families and growing the economy. Even though that is the case, we are still willing to work out a compromise with our Republican counterparts. We are not going to get everything we want. That is what conferences are all about. They have been going on in this country for more than two centuries. But we believe our sound fiscal policy would stand out as being so much better than what they have done in the House. We could do this through the regular order of the budget process. Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans are not going to find common ground if we never start negotiating. As I said, for 86 days Republican leaders have objected to a conference with the House of Representatives. In conference, Democrats and Republicans could work together to work out our differences--differences between our budgets as well as our priorities. But Senate Republicans have objected to a conference time and time again.…”