Political Quotes

“Senator Wicker asked a very good question, and every American needs to be thinking about that. I have given a lot of thought to it. We have not had a budget in 3 years--1,241 days. We have not had a budget passed on the floor of this Senate. They did not even report one from committee this year. If we are blessed by the American people--we the Republican Senators--and have a majority in this body and if I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the Budget Committee, we will have a budget. Failure is not an option. It cannot be that we will not comply with the law. But more than that, Senator Wicker, we have to have a plan to get us off the course to financial disaster, and the budget is the way you lay out that plan. Does the Senator not agree that the difficulty our Democratic colleagues had is that anything they thought they could agree on and bring forth would not be popular with the American people? And they did not want to subject themselves to having it debated on the floor and having a vote on amendments, as the Budget Act allows, even though you can pass a budget with a simple majority, cannot be filibustered? I guess what I will ask the Senator, when you do not write a budget because you cannot agree or are unwilling to step forward with a plan, what you are really doing is failing to provide leadership. We were elected to lead, to have a plan that we are willing to announce to try to get us on the right course, a budget.…”