Political Quotes

“this is really a simple idea. And I think I am understanding the gentleman from South Carolina to say that he agrees with the concept, the concept being that if you identify a specific item that appears to one of the Members here as wasteful and he prevails in his vote on the floor, that that money should not be spent somewhere else. It is not that complicated. And, God knows, we got a lot of items that fit this description. The last omnibus spending bill we allocated $4 million to study fruit flies in France, $2 million to teach kids to play golf in Florida, and, yes, $50 million to build an indoor tropical rain forest in Iowa. The gentleman from South Carolina, if I understand correctly, seems to be objecting to the amendment on the grounds that it is difficult to draft this in a way that really works. And I am the first to say it is tricky. But we got a lot of very bright people in this town. If this is not the absolute perfect way to draft it, although it might be, I appreciate my colleague conceding that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) has done an excellent job, maybe the best job yet on this, I would say let us support the amendment and let us work on refining it and improving it and let us dedicate both sides' staffs to figuring out how to get this done. But the concept of saying if a certain amount of spending is going to be withheld on this floor, that that money is not available to be spent anywhere else, that is not that hard.”