Political Quotes

“We can save these programs. It is just going to require us to confront reality and make some changes in how we do business. I wish to say one more thing about this budget, before I forget. My Democratic colleagues claim the Budget Control Act was a budget, but it only dealt with discretionary spending. It didn't deal with all the other spending. It only set limits on expenditures and it didn't have any debate on the floor. It was a secret agreement. There was a budget limitation placed on spending as a result of Republicans insisting we had to reduce some spending before we would allow the President to raise the debt limit. That went on into the wee hours of the morning and they put together a horrible deal and now we are paying the price for it. It did cut some spending, and it limited how much spending we could do, but it didn't go through the budget process, it didn't cover all the government programs, and it doesn't have anything like the indices of a budget. An attempt was made--and successfully--to bring up the President's budget for a vote. The motion was believed to be legitimate because there was no budget, and we were going to have a vote on it. Our Democratic colleagues ran to the Parliamentarian to try to argue that this cap on spending that was agreed to last August was a budget. They picked the Parliamentarian. The majority hires the Parliamentarian. And very courageously and properly the Parliamentarian said: No, it is not a budget.…”