Political Quotes

“Mr. President, shortly the two leaders of this Chamber will be headed to the White House to update the President on discussions over keeping the government funded and up and running past the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30. I want to briefly remind our colleagues how we ended up in this situation, why it is we are talking about a short-term continuing resolution from this point until December 9 and then revisiting the issue beyond that by December 9. It is pretty clear everybody understands that a CR, as we call it around here--a continuing resolution--is really a stop-gap spending bill to fund the government, and it is the result of our Democratic colleagues filibustering the regular appropriations process. As the Presiding Officer knows, there are 12 appropriations bills that need to be considered by each of the appropriations subcommittees, then they are voted on by the committee itself, and then they come to the floor of the U.S. Senate, where we take them up in a transparent and orderly sort of way--each of those 12 bills--or at least that is the plan. We brought up bill after bill to do just exactly that this year, and this is the first time since 2009 that all 12 bills have been voted out of the committee and are now available for us to act upon.…”