Political Quotes

“I would like to begin by stating the obvious, if I could, when my Democratic colleagues call this bill a compromise. This bill is a lot of things, but a compromise it is not. It takes away everything we have done for the last year--everything we have done for the last year--and, poof, it is gone. It throws it away. There is an old saying in the House: It is not the opposing party that is the enemy; it is the Senate. This is a great illustration of this. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, it pains me that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have effectively removed my constituents from this process by just accepting the Senate bill. Every Member of the House and our constituents have been silenced in this. We are not represented at all. Not only has the Democratic majority ignored this body's role in creating this budget, they are throwing away hundreds of hours of hearings, of markups, and of floor time, again, as we are fighting for our constituents. We passed a bill. The House has done our work. Let me say it again: The House has done our work. If this was a serious effort by our friends on the other side to open the government, then they would pass our House bill again. Then it would go to the Senate, and we would reconcile those two bills.…”