Political Quotes

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this conference report, which includes the fiscal year 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. I want to thank my colleague and ranking member, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), for his support throughout this process. I also want to thank Senate counterparts, Senators Mikulski and Hutchison, and I also want to particularly thank Chairman Rogers of the full committee and Ranking Member Mr. Dicks. This was a very, very open process. Also I want to thank the CJS subcommittee staff, including Mike Ringler, Leslie Albright, Stephanie Meyers, Diana Simpson, Colin Samples and Scott Sammis, as well as Todd Culligan in my office, and Darek Newby and Bob Bonner on the minority staff. Working together, we were able to produce a conference report that reduces discretionary spending in line with the Budget Control Act, while the supercommittee works to control entitlement spending which is the primary driver of our unsustainable debt and reform the Tax Code. The final CJS bill before the House is $583 million below--below-- fiscal year 2011 and $4.9 billion, 8.5 percent, below the President's request. Since Republicans assumed the majority, we have reduced spending by more than $11 billion for agencies funded in the CJS appropriations bill. At the same time, the bill also provides funding for a variety of critical national priorities.…”