Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I also rise to speak about the budget. I find many points of agreement with my colleague from Utah. Just to sort of jump into it, normally we wouldn't be having this budget discussion in the fall. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 suggests that the President would give us a budget in February, that we would pass a budget by April, and that budget would then set top-line numbers that would be given to the committees, that would then write their authorizing bills with those budgetary numbers. Then it would be handed over, and the appropriators would ultimately fashion appropriations bills that were responsive to the budget and the authorizing bills. We are into a new fiscal year, and the many of the authorizing committees have already done their jobs. I am on the Armed Services Committee. Probably the biggest piece of legislation we do every year is the NDAA. We have already written it without having a budget. We didn't have a budget top-line number this year. We have gone ahead and written the bill, and the appropriators are already working. I think what everybody on this floor understands is that this really isn't a budget debate; it is an effort to set up a set of instructions around which to do tax reform via budget reconciliation. In my view, this budgetary document fails as a budget, and it also fails as a good- faith beginning to a tax reform discussion.…”