Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I think it is kind of unprecedented to have, in this case, the acting chairman and the ranking member be so close together on what we have attempted to do. I think it is worthwhile to note, as Senator Reed brought up, that we had the committee hearing on this, and it is very rare we come out as we did on that. We actually did that in 1 day. It was 1 day, and it was 9 hours total. I am not sure if that is some kind of a record or not, but it shows that we are working very well together, and I was hoping that would take care of this today. Anyway, we are now going to start discussing this bill. Since we have lost the opportunity to move to the bill and actually start on amendments, I think it is more important now to at least talk about what we are anticipating. Today we will begin consideration--even though we are not on the bill, we can still talk about it. This is the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2019. It is the most important piece of legislation we consider every year. As I have said, this is now the 57th consecutive year that we have done this. I remember that just a few years ago we got very close to the middle of December or the end of December, which is an absolute deadline to get it done for the fiscal year. We had to go to the big four, and we got it done and got it passed. Well, we don't want to do that now.…”