Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I note that we faced a long discussion about a bill that was just passed out of the Armed Services Committee. I, unfortunately, felt compelled to oppose it, but I appreciate working with the Senator from Illinois as we discussed it. Amendment No. 4173 Mr. President, I am disappointed that we are going to vote on this emergency supplemental legislation, not having voted on the amendment I offered, along with Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, my Democratic colleague. It received 59 votes a few weeks ago. It is designed to help contain our rapacious tendency to spend, spend, spend. We give the phrase ``a drunken sailor spending'' a bad name the way we are spending in this Congress. I had hoped we would get another vote on it. I am disappointed Senator Reid and the leadership on the Democratic side took action to see that a vote would not occur. I called it up very early in the process, and I am disappointed. The amendment would have made it more difficult to break the budget and allowed more scrutiny for us before we violate it. The emergency supplemental legislation that is before us violates the budget. Every penny of this is spending beyond the budget. It has items that are not what we think of as emergencies. If our military men and women have a health problem and there is a condition that requires us to take care of them, that takes extra money. We deal with these issues in the Armed Services Committee. But that is not an emergency.…”