Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will not go into the detail I was planning to go into as to what we are faced with and what we are going to be voting on tomorrow, but I think it is very important--because I have heard a lot of erroneous things coming out of various talk radio shows and elsewhere--as to how we got into the mess we are in where we are going to be looking at a major spending bill instead of the normal way of doing things. Historically, in both the House and the Senate, the order has been to do an authorization bill, and that is followed by an appropriations bill. That works out fine in the House. In the Senate, it is not quite that easy because we have some rules in the Senate that allow the minority--whether that be Republican or Democratic--to object to a procedural basis. So it actually takes 60 votes, not 51 votes, to pass appropriations. This has created a real problem. I remember that on June 18, we passed the Defense Authorization Act. Given that we are in a time of war, it was incredibly important to provide our Defense Department what in the regular course of business would be appropriated to it. However, we have been trying to appropriate that since June 18, and the minority has kept us from doing that. I can say the same thing about other appropriations bills, such as Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Energy and Water, and others. One might say: Why would they be doing this?…”