Political Quotes

“today the Senate will vote to put the government on autopilot for the next 4 and a half months. Coupled with the continuing resolution we are currently under, that is 7 months of fiscal year 2017 priorities funded--or not--under the terms of the fiscal year 2016 omnibus bill. Freezing in place an earlier year's priorities--ignoring the many hearings and the committee work and the debates and the oversight that the Appropriations Committees have invested in genuine, full-year funding bills for next year--by definition means this stop-gap bill is chock-full of great mismatches between our current priorities and those set long ago for an earlier fiscal year. By definition it means wasted diversion of funds to past priorities and giving short shrift to changing circumstances, needs and priorities. What does that mean to Vermonters? It means cuts to food assistance needs. It means halted homeland security preparedness grants. It means uncertainty for affordable housing developers and transportation planners. It means we here in Congress didn't get our job done. What makes the vote on this continuing resolution all the more frustrating is the fact that we didn't need to be in this predicament today. The Senate Appropriations Committee carefully considered 12 individual appropriations bills. All but one were reported with broad if not unanimous support.…”