Political Quotes

“it has now been 95 days since the Senate passed a budget, and I have come to the floor myself now 6 times to ask unanimous consent to move to conference. My Democratic colleagues have asked unanimous consent to move to conference another eight times. After every request, a Senate Republican has stood up and said no--no to the opportunity to work on a bipartisan budget deal. I want to say to the Republicans who are blocking a bipartisan budget conference: Enough is enough. We have heard so many excuses--refusing to allow conference before we get to a so-called preconference framework; putting preconditions on what can be discussed in a bipartisan conference; claiming that moving to a budget conference-- which leading Republicans did call for just a few months ago--was somehow not regular order; to, most recently, claiming we need to look at a 30-year budget window before looking at the major problems we have right now in front of us--which, I add, is unacceptable, because the American people rightly expect us to work on both at the same time. Hearing these changing excuses week after week has been frustrating not just for Democrats but for many of my Republican colleagues as well. A large group of us--Republicans and Democrats--think that although we do have major differences between the parties' values and priorities, we should at least come to the table and try to work out a bipartisan deal. That is what American people do every day.…”