Political Quotes

“after many long days and nights of four- party negotiations across a dozen subcommittees over the past month, on Sunday night the Appropriations Committee completed work on the fiscal year 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act. I commend Chairwoman Mikulski, without whom this would not have been possible. It was, above all, her relentless pursuit of this goal and her unmatched ability to rally her subcommittee troops together to get us to this point. I would also note that she was helped by some of the most hard working members of the Senate staff one can imagine. I want to especially commend Tim Rieser of my staff, and Janet Stormes and Nikole Manatt who worked with him. I could not keep track of the number of times I received emails or calls at midnight or 1 a.m. from Tim as we worked through all the difficult parts of this bill. And it could not have been done without the cooperation of my friend from Alabama Senator Shelby, the committee's ranking member, who knew how important it was to pass appropriations bills rather than put the government on autopilot. This means there will be no sequester in fiscal year 2014, and there will not be another disastrous government shutdown that achieved nothing, disrupted the lives of millions of American families, and cost the taxpayers some $24 billion and private industry tens of billions of dollars more.…”