John Cornyn: “clearly it is an election year, because we are hearing more and more political speeches from the floor of the Senate and…”

“clearly it is an election year, because we are hearing more and more political speeches from the floor of the Senate and precious little work doing the hard things that we actually are elected to do, which is to legislate. Here we find ourselves dealing with appropriations bills that should have been completed last September. I don't know if people really understand that. What we are doing today, lurching from one shutdown to the next, is dealing with last year's work. But you would think that, under the leadership of Majority Leader Schumer, we would have enough things to do rather than squander the opportunity to deal with those because we are dealing with last year's work. I think we can do better next year. Hopefully, with a different majority, we can actually pass a budget. We can take up and pass appropriation bills on a timely basis, and we can get our work done on time--something that has not happened under the current leadership. I want to mention one hopeful sign, where, at least, one branch of the legislature is actually moving things through committee and across the floor and allowing votes, amendments, and debate. That would be the House of Representatives, not the U.S. Senate, sometimes called the world's greatest deliberative body. To their credit, earlier this year, the House passed a bill that made significant changes in our tax system, and that is what I want to talk about for the next few minutes.…”