Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I come to the floor today, 71 days in the fiscal year, 71 days into a continuing resolution. It is unfortunate. I am placing no blame. It is unfortunate we have not considered on the floor of the U.S. Senate--not 1 of the 12 regular order appropriations bills. The appropriations process is completely broken. Quite honestly, it has been broken since I arrived here in the Senate in 2011. I ran for the U.S. Senate primarily because I was concerned about the fact that we were mortgaging our children's future. Back then, we were $14 trillion in debt, and that was extremely concerning to me. Now, 10 years later, 71 days into the 2021 fiscal year, we are $27.4 trillion into debt. That is an increase of $13.4 trillion. It is almost double since I have been here in just 10 years. Again, the appropriations process is so broken. During that timeframe, we had to pass 36 continuing resolutions. The debt limit has no power in terms of controlling our out-of-control spending. We either raised or suspended the debt limit nine times. Unfortunately, during that time, that 10 years, we have also--because of the broken process here--we have shut down the government three times, costing our economy, costing our government billions of dollars, and hurting real people. I come from the State of Wisconsin, where, if the legislature can't get its act together and we don't pass appropriations bills and we are at an impasse, we don't shut down the government.…”