Political Quotes

“reserving the right to object, I want to first note that every one of the reserve funds included in this bipartisan bill was also included and voted on as part of the Senate- passed 2014 budget resolution. None of this material is new. My colleagues have seen and voted on every one of those reserve funds. In the 9 months since the Senate passed the budget, I cannot recall, frankly, a single time that a Member came up to me and raised an issue regarding one of those reserve funds. I similarly would like to point out that reserve funds are not new. The Senate has actually relied on reserve funds to help it carry out its priorities under the annual budget process for nearly 30 years. The authority to include them is specifically authorized in law by section 301(b)(7) of the Congressional Budget Act. In fact, reserve funds are so common and accepted by Republicans and Democrats alike that Senators actually filed more than 300 of them during the debate on the 2014 budget resolution. Let me repeat that for everyone. Senators filed more than 300 reserve funds this year, including, by the way, a few from my friend, the Senator from Alabama. So if there is anything that should be noncontroversial, it should be including some of these reserve funds that were debated and agreed to last spring. More fundamentally, the bipartisan agreement now before the Senate will ensure that the Senate once again has a budget. That is a good thing.…”