Political Quotes

“We have now been operating for more than 800 days without a budget having been passed. We are operating at the direction of the party in control of this body on autopilot. It is easy to operate on autopilot. In many ways it is far easier than operating not on autopilot, especially when we are spending more than $1.5 trillion a year more than we are bringing in, more than $1.5 trillion every year more than we have, continuing to bury our children under a mountain of debt. When you are on autopilot, you don't have the same constraints, the same hard choices, the same prioritization demands that need to be made that Americans make every single day as they manage their homes, their lives, their families, their businesses--and State and local governments. This is unfortunate. It is unnecessary, and it is shameful. It should not continue to operate this way. An enterprise as large as the Federal Government, which brings in $2.2 trillion every single year, having access to more money than perhaps any other institution on Earth, ought to be able to operate with a budget. It ought to be able to pass a budget. It ought not be operating on autopilot so as to insulate itself from critiques justifiable and unjustifiable alike, from those who would say: Why are you doing it this way? Why are you doing it that way? To have a debate, a discussion, that is necessary. It necessarily surrounds the budgeting process in any legislative body, in any republic around the world.…”