Political Quotes

“Mr. President, Senate Democrats have come to the floor now 13 times and requested unanimous consent to move to bipartisan budget negotiations with the House. We are ready to get to work. We have been ready for 88 days now, which is how long it has been since the Senate passed a budget. Back in March we assumed that once the two Chambers passed their budgets, Republicans would be eager to join us in a formal budget conference, since they have spent years talking about the need to return to regular order. Instead, we have seen delay after delay. Now that Republicans have gotten exactly what they wished for, they seem to be running as quickly as they can in the other direction, and they have offered excuse after excuse after excuse. First, they said they wanted a framework before they would start a conference, even though a framework is exactly what a budget is. In other words, they wanted to negotiate behind closed doors when we should be negotiating in a conference. Then they said they wouldn't allow us to go to conference unless we guaranteed the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations would be protected from paying a penny more in taxes. Then many Republicans indicated they didn't want negotiations happening too early, to take away the leverage they think they have on the debt ceiling.…”