Political Quotes

“I want to thank my good friend, a member of the Budget Committee, for yielding, and my colleague on the Rules Committee. I rise to oppose the rule and oppose the underlying legislation. Now, I oppose the rule because it is not really a rule at all. It is really legislation masking as a rule. Buried in this rule is a measure that will, what we call self- execute, but deem what the budget is going to be. In other words, our friends are telling us: We may not have the votes, even though we have a substantial majority, to pass our own caps bill. But just in case, the rule vote, which is a partisan vote, we are going to put it in here. Now, that doesn't speak to a high degree of confidence that my friends will have the votes, which they should have, on their caps deal. I would argue it is technically legal, but it is not a very seemly practice to actually express your distrust of your own majority that directly. Second, let's talk a little bit about the underlying legislation. There is a lot here I don't agree with, but I want to focus on one thing in particular, Mr. Speaker, and that is the ``budget'' itself, because it is not a budget. It is a caps bill. It is not even a caps deal. It hasn't been negotiated with the Senate. It hasn't been negotiated with the administration. It is an arbitrary number. It has no chance of becoming law. There is no way a Republican Senate will have double the amount of increase for domestic programs as it has for defense.…”