Political Quotes

“as vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and I am sure I can also speak for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, we appreciate this vote, so we can move forward. We have spent the last week on the Senate floor. But, what many people have not seen are the hours and hours that Senators, both Republicans and Democrats, have spent working together to get where we are today. Many people have not seen the countless of hours more being done by our staffs. Sometimes at 1 in the morning, they are still negotiating parts of this bill. We are just within an hour or so of doing something the Senate, as Senator McConnell pointed out, has not been able to do in years. I think we will pass a good, responsible and within-the-budget piece of legislation. Both Republicans and Democrats had a voice in the process. We held numerous votes in the Senate Appropriations Committee, all of them overwhelmingly bipartisan, many of them unanimous--with the exception of one or two votes--to get to where we are today. I see some of the chairs from our subcommittees who worked very hard to put together these bipartisan coalitions. I know a lot of people are anxious to get out of here, and soon they will be headed to the airport. Let's get this done. Let's show that the U.S. Senate is actually doing its work. Let's do what we were elected to do, what we know how to do, and what we can do. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.…”