Political Quotes

“Madam President, we have a lot of issues we are working on right now. Some of the big ones include the budget conversation. For the first time in a long time, the budget conversation really circles around, how are we going to get back to balance? It is an interesting dialogue. There is going to be a lot of dispute about elements of the President's budget. There will be a lot of controversy back and forth about aspects in the House and the Senate proposals. But for the first time in a long time, the beginning point of the conversation is, how do we get back to balance? That is a good place to start. I am pleased to see that is a part of the conversation again. There are a tremendous number of things that have to be dealt with in this process. I want to bring up two quick ones and then talk about some of the small business issues we are facing. One of them is that when we go through the budget process, I encourage my colleagues to deal with the budget gimmicks that are still in place in the budget process--areas that seem to bring down the deficit but we all know actually do not. Those don't help us as Americans. That may help with some sort of scoring issues; that doesn't really help where we are. The second aspect to that is, let's actually put the appropriations bills on the floor. For the last several years, there have been continuing resolutions or omnibuses without any amendment process brought.…”