Political Quotes

“listening to these excuses this morning from our Republican colleagues, I cannot help but think how far this great Republican revolution has sagged. My colleagues claimed they wanted to change everything, and yet they justify this morning's adventure in fiscal responsibility on the grounds that we ought to keep doing things the same old way it has been done in the past. Last year, this Congress managed to pack in billions of dollars of pork into a weighty bill, weighing in at 40 pounds to be exact, something called the Omnibus Spending bill. Some of us called it the ``Octopus Spending'' bill, because of the strange reach of its long tentacles. Labeling projects as ``emergencies'' that did not have any genuine emergency associated with them at all was done for the sole purpose of avoiding the limitations of the Balanced Budget Act. Again this spring, billions of dollars of projects that did not have anything to do with Kosovo were given that very valued appellation ``emergency'' as a way of increasing defense spending while pretending to comply with the Balanced Budget Act. Apparently, getting away with such charades only whetted the appetites of those who come to this floor and preach fiscal restraint and then proceed to engage in this kind of gamesmanship. In this bill, they designate almost $5 billion for the 2000 Census. That is the same ``emergency'' that our Founding Fathers required us to do every decade in the United States Constitution.”