Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this Friday we run out of the current-- which is now the sixth continuing resolution--short-term continuing resolution which we have been operating under since the end of the fiscal year, which was September 30 of last year. We started a new fiscal year October 1. Judging by some of the rhetoric we have been hearing around here, one would think somehow it is these big, bad, evil Republicans who are trying to shut the government down by trying to get a bill passed that actually would reduce spending for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on September 30. I remind my colleagues--and I know sometimes it gets a bit redundant--it is a fact that the reason we are here is because last year the Democrats in the Congress failed to pass a budget and did not pass a single appropriations bill. There was no budget passed last year for this fiscal year and not a single appropriations bill passed before the fiscal year ended September 30. Beyond that, we had a lameduck session where we were here, we were here after November's election until the Christmas holiday, and never did we have a budget considered on the floor, nor did we consider a single appropriations bill. The reason we are here is to finish the unfinished business of last year. This is last year's mess we are now cleaning up. We think the voters in the election spoke pretty clearly and sent an imperative to the Congress: We want you to reduce spending.…”