Political Quotes

“Madam President, the end of the fiscal year is just 12 days away, and the Senate has not yet voted on a single one of the 12 appropriations bills that have passed on a bipartisan basis out of the Appropriations Committee. The majority leader, who controls the agenda of the Senate and the timing at which we consider matters, has had all year to plan and prepare for the September 30 deadline. But here we are, less than 2 weeks before a shutdown, with no clear path to funding the government. At the start of last week, this Chamber was preparing to take up a three-bill minibus. In other words, having not started to vote on any single bill, the majority leader put a bill on the floor that combines 3 of those 12 appropriations bills. This is something the Senate has done before; but to be clear, this is not a feature of the regular order of things. Following the regular order involves taking up and passing each appropriation bill one at a time. Had the majority leader taken this process seriously, he would have had time to do that. The Appropriations Committee passed the first funding bills on June 22, which is nearly 3 months ago. The Senate could have been processing those funding bills at any point over the summer. We could have followed the regular order and debated, amended, and passed all 12 bills ahead of the September 30 deadline. Sadly, that didn't happen, which is now why we find ourselves in this situation.…”