Political Quotes

“I want to speak today about the Omnibus appropriations and tax bill. First, I want to applaud my colleagues who have worked tirelessly towards this deal for over a year now. Our leadership and the leaders of our Appropriations, Finance, and Budget Committees have been setting the stage for this action and I want to thank them. This bill, H.R. 2029, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, addresses many priorities that I have been fighting for since joining the Senate in 2013. It comes on the heels of the Bipartisan Budget Act we passed in October of this year, which addressed for 2 years the arbitrary budget caps set by sequestration and implements the first year of that agreement. First enacted as part of the Bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011, these arbitrary budget caps have been hurting our national defense and domestic priorities since sequestration went into effect in 2013 by arbitrarily forcing critical agencies such as the Department of Defense to set strategy and policy based on artificial caps. As a former mayor and Governor I have a lot of experience with budgets and decisionmaking. I understand using budgets gimmicks to set policy is the opposite of what we should be doing. It is a strategy that is unsustainable and must be addressed if we are to properly manage our finances.…”