Political Quotes

“I was prepared to say as I did at the Committee on Rules that we do not really have a problem with this rule or this bill. It, in fact, is the first appropriations bill, at least that I am told, that is less than the previous year. That is because we are suspending some of the funding on the Capitol Visitors Center to make sure we have a full handle on all the additional expenditures, and we are not going forward quite as fast as the Capitol Police chief would like, but it does not imply necessarily any criticism in either respect. So this should have not been a problem. This should have been a rule that we could have probably voiced. Not now. What we have is a serious affront to the institution. This was found by our appropriations staff person going through the bill. The majority staff was not even told about it. The Chair of the subcommittee was not even told about it. And it is just the kind of thing that makes the entire institution look bad. We just had a bill yesterday that was not a bad bill. We wanted to make sure that current Federal employees were treated the same as Federal retirees, but it is a very sensitive issue given the fact that we just passed a prescription drug program under Medicare that many of us feel is very inadequate. So when it is compared to the benefits that Federal employees get and the members of the legislative branch get, it looks even worse.”