Political Quotes

“Senator McCain and I are introducing bipartisan, bicameral legislation to make reports published by the Congressional Research Service, CRS, available to the American public online. This legislation will open up an invaluable, taxpayer-funded resource for use by schools, universities, researchers, libraries, and individuals across the country. The CRS was founded more than 100 years ago to provide comprehensive, non-partisan information on vital issues affecting national policy. In 2015, CRS issued over 1200 new reports and updated almost 2500 existing products, on matters ranging from the structure of government agencies, to summaries of legislative proposals, foreign policy primers, and everything in between. These reports are posted on an internal website for use by Members of Congress and their staff, but they are not distributed directly to the public. In an informal arrangement that is all too familiar in Washington, this unnecessary restriction has created a cottage industry of services that make copies of the reports available to lobbyists for a subscription fee. Schools and the general public cannot access them, nor do readers know whether the scattering of CRS reports they can find online through third-party websites are authentic, complete, or up-to-date. That's not very `public' and does nothing for the average citizen in Vermont or the rest of the country who does not have easy access to Washington.…”