Political Quotes

“I appreciate the vote we just concluded. I think what the vote said is that we want the bill on the floor to be in compliance with the Budget Control Act that was passed 15 months ago. This bill, even though it was not a lot of money, violated that. Senators have voted not to waive the budget and spend the money anyway. They decided we should comply with the budget. I talked with Senator Tester and Majority Leader Reid and assured them that the fundamentals of this bill are good. I like what they have been trying to do with the Sportsmen's Act and I have been supportive of so many of the provisions in it. We had several little problems. First and foremost, it attempted to spend more than the EKW Committee was entitled to spend under the Budget Control Act. Second, we have a blue slip problem with it. Thirdly, we have given the Interior Department Secretary the power to raise taxes unilaterally without a vote of Congress, and I think that is bad policy. All of those, however, compared to the many other provisions in the legislation are small, and we should be able to work them out. So I hope we can, and I will be working in that regard. However, I do wish to say to my colleagues, this is the second bill that has had a lot of support on both sides of the aisle but has failed because they violated the Budget Control Act agreement on spending.…”