Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to speak briefly about the Senate budget. At the close of my comments, I will make yet another motion to put the Senate budget into conference with the House. As we all know, we were here until 5 a.m. on March 23 to pass the first Senate budget through regular budgetary order in 4 years. It was a full, open process both in committee, with numerous amendments, and then on the Senate floor, with over 100 amendments voted on and over 70 passed. It is now past time, many days past time, for us to begin a budget conference process. This will enable the Senate to return to normal budgetary order, and it is what our voters, both Democratic and Republican, in all of our States expect us to do to have a meaningful conference about this budget with the House. Good news. We are seeing some recent examples of normal compromise in this body that I think is worthy of some attention: the appropriations bill we passed through a regular order process for the remainder of 2013 in March; the marketplace fairness bill we passed, the problem that had been searching for a solution for 15 to 20 years; the WRDA bill we passed last week; and the debates we are having about the farm bill today. All have involved significant open processes in a committee, significant open processes on the Senate floor. The Senate action then moves in a regular order action into discussion with the House.…”