Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his kind words and for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the underlying legislation. As has been made clear, we are actually talking about two different pieces of legislation here today. The waiver for Secretary-designee James Mattis is, quite frankly, a no-brainer. The Senate voted 81-17 in favor of that waiver. I would suspect there will be similar bipartisan support here. My friend is correct, of course; this is a serious matter whenever we grant exceptions to the law. But General Mattis is just uniformly and universally respected across the lines for his distinguished work in defense of this country, so I hope we move ahead on that. The budget resolution that comes before us is another matter, and there will be a great deal of contention. Frankly, the resolution itself is not, as my good friend from California pointed out, and should not be seen as, a traditional budgetary item. It is, frankly, a projection of what will happen if we do absolutely nothing over the next decade and leave the current set of policies in place. It is a sobering document to read in that regard because it shows rising deficits every single year for a decade, beginning at over $580 billion and then moving well north of $1 trillion.…”