Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge the adoption of H.J. Res. 48 for the continuing appropriations for this fiscal year. It seems to me that we've got three questions we ought to address in the course of this debate. First, and very elementally, why are we here? Second, what does the bill do? And third, what are the consequences if the bill isn't passed? We're here for the simple reason that the last Congress, that my good friends on the other side ran, never passed a budget and never passed a single appropriations bill. We're here because the Democratic majority failed to do its work. We're also here because the current Democratic majority in the other body has so far failed to do its work. I remind my colleagues, we actually passed legislation and sent it over. I also remind my colleagues that the one proposal in the Senate that actually got the most votes was actually the Republican H.R. 1. But nevertheless, they failed to give us something to negotiate against. It's their obligation in the Senate at some point to have a common negotiating position. I don't know how we can sit down and negotiate otherwise. So we're here, I think, because of a Democratic failure both in the last Congress and this one. Second, what does this bill do? Well, it's pretty commonsensical. It cuts and reduces 25 programs, saving $3.5 billion.”