Political Quotes

“I appreciate the comments from my friend, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. As many know, Chairman Shelby and I have been friends for decades. We have traveled to different parts of the world and tried to promote the U.S. agenda. We have worked very closely together. That is why we are opening debate on the first set of appropriations bills for fiscal year 2019. The minibus before us contains the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, and the Legislative Branch appropriations bill. These bills have strong bipartisan support. On each subcommittee, I compliment the chairs and ranking members, who worked very closely together and set aside partisan labels to get these bills before the full committee so that Senator Shelby and I could then bring them up for votes in the full committee. So far, we have reported from the committee 7 of the 12 annual appropriations bills, each with overwhelming bipartisan support--I almost want to reemphasize that: each with overwhelming bipartisan support--at a time when it is as though nothing can be done in a bipartisan way. I think we have set the example of the way the Senate was, should be and can be. As one who has been in this body for almost 44 years, I like to see the Senate work the way it should. In fact, we are going to mark up three of the five remaining bills this week.…”