Political Quotes

“I thank the majority leader for allowing us to have a few remarks at this time, after the process has been completed tonight. The Senate has not fulfilled its responsibility. The United States Code that we passed, Congress passed, requires that there be a budget. It requires that Congress commence marking up the budget in the Budget Committee, as the Presiding Officer knows, by April 1, and a concurrent resolution be passed by April 15, setting forth what the Congress authorizes to be spent in the next year. If anybody attempts to spend above that amount, the Budget Act allows a point of order to be raised, and it would require 60 votes to go above that level. So a budget says what we want to spend and makes it difficult for anybody to spend more. It is what we do in our households, it is what our cities and counties do, it is what our State governments do. I know Senator Manchin, the Presiding Officer, as a Governor, he had to deal with his tough budget situation. My Governor, Governor Bentley, just announced he is prorating 15 percent of the discretionary spending for the rest of the year. We are not talking about those kinds of cuts this year in Washington. I was in Estonia, near the Soviet Union on the Baltic Sea, and the proud Estonians had a larger deficit, larger economic decline than we did. The Estonians told us that every Cabinet official took a 40- percent pay cut, every employee took 10 to 20. The health system, one said: My wife is a doctor.…”