Political Quotes

“I welcome back our colleagues from the Columbus Day recess. As we open our session, I hope everyone--I am sure they did--had a productive and rejuvenating week with their constituents and their families and their friends. We have a very busy 5-week session ahead of us. There is a lot of work to do. First up is going to be spending reconciliation. This week our committees are taking up the hard work of thoughtfully considering spending cuts to ensure fiscal discipline, particularly in light of our responsibilities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. It is not an easy job. It is not going to be an easy job over the next several days and weeks. I do want to thank our committees and their chairmen and ranking members for their determination and focus. On appropriations, we have made steady progress. We have made good progress in the last several weeks. I anticipate we will be able to finish the Transportation, Treasury, HUD, and DC appropriations bill this week, which means once we are successful with that--and we will be--we will have only one bill remaining. I thank, particularly, Chairman Thad Cochran for his tremendous leadership in this appropriations process. The appropriations process is one of our primary responsibilities. It funds the basic functions of our Government. And we are committed to doing so in a way that is disciplined and is fiscally responsible. This is equally true as we continue to meet the challenges of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.…”