Political Quotes

“I thank the Chair. Well, the fundamental problem is that our Democratic leadership has decided it would be foolish to have a budget, even though it is required by law. They have refused to produce a budget now for 806 days--over 2 years. Last year, Senator Conrad produced a budget in committee, and it was voted on and brought to the floor, but the majority leader refused to even bring it up for debate and vote. This year I suppose it was that the majority leader decided we would not even have one in committee. So we have not commenced any action to pass a budget. But now we are proceeding to spend money. We are proceeding to pass legislation that would expend taxpayers' money without a budget. That is not good policy by any standards, whether we have a law or not. But we actually have a law that requires us to have a budget first. That is why I found myself having to raise a budget point of order. We were not elected to shut down the committees, to violate the congressional process of deciding how money should be spent, to cede our constitutional responsibility to some secret meeting somewhere so they can produce some sort of bill and drop it in the Senate on August 1, presumably, and then demand that we pay for it. Because, look, you have to look behind the numbers. Just because the President says his budget does one thing, his plan does another thing, don't you think we ought to check it out?…”