Political Quotes

“I want to start by making it very clear that this is not the way our budget process should work. In fact, to even call this a budget process gives it more credit than it deserves. With Republicans in control of the White House and both Chambers of Congress, the budget process has now descended into chaos and dysfunction. I talked about this in the Budget Committee, but I am going to keep talking about it because it is important. First of all, look at the date. We are debating a budget for fiscal year 2018 months too late and more than 2 weeks into the fiscal year for which we are supposed to be budgeting. Secondly and far more importantly, we are not really here to talk about a budget. We are not really here to have a debate about our values and our priorities or where we should be directing our limited national resources. We are not here to talk about what or whom we should be investing in as a nation. We are certainly not really here to try to come together around a shared vision for where our country can head next year or 5 years from now or even 10 years from now. Yet Democrats do want to have this conversation. We believe this is a critical debate to have, and we would love to spend time on this floor debating a budget that opens up that conversation and puts us on a path toward working together to actually get that done. We all know why we are really here.…”