Political Quotes

“Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arkansas and my good friend from Tennessee for initiating this effort. Again, as a relatively new Senator--in fact, I jumped the line. I apologize. As the Presiding Officer would support, it is only in the interest of family values; if I were not getting to my wife's birthday in about 30 minutes, I would be able to give more extended remarks. As a Senator who has only had the opportunity to serve in this body for 3 years, I hear my more senior colleagues talk about the old days or the days when the Senate took up in an orderly fashion the business of the people and debated it in vigorous fashion but came to conclusion on issues that confronted the country. We have done some of that in the years when I came in with the Presiding Officer. There were issues of major importance that we have debated. But too often in recent times, we have not had the favor of those kinds of debates. While we can disagree about many of the grave issues of the day, as a former businessperson, I know there is nothing more important than to give predictability to the enterprise we call the Federal Government. The way we do that is by passing spending bills--the appropriations bills--where hard choices are made about which programs to fund, which programs not to fund. Like my friend the Senator from Tennessee and both Senators from Arkansas and the Presiding Officer, I have enormous concerns about our debt and deficit.…”