Political Quotes

“here we are again. It is late September, and the budget work has not been completed yet. It seems terribly familiar to this body, and it is frustrating. It is not as if no one knew September was coming; it was on the calendar. When I first looked at it in January this year, September already existed on the calendar. It is not as if we didn't know what all the deadlines were. Everyone knew full well what all the deadlines were. We can say it is the pandemic that slowed everything down, except for the fact that all of the appropriations work could have already been done, and much of the committee work could have been done. Some was done by the House but not completed. It can be done by the Senate, but it was not. So here we are again, watching the countdown clock toward a government shutdown as we discuss what happens next. Things have been tied up this week with what is called a continuing resolution. This body knows--others may not--that a continuing resolution is literally taking last year's appropriations bills, changing the dates, and moving them over to the new one. This particular continuing resolution stretches until December 11, when we would have to pick it up and pass more appropriations for another continuing resolution at that time. The fight this week has been over whether we are going to support rural America and agriculture. The House originally drafted a continuing resolution that left out all of the agriculture projects that were in it.…”