Jay Rockefeller: “I, too, am frustrated. I mean, there are lots of things to be frustrated about this year. The pace has been slow. There…”

“I, too, am frustrated. I mean, there are lots of things to be frustrated about this year. The pace has been slow. There are things we should have been doing. There are distractions hither and yon. One thing we should be doing is the budget. The budget is the statement of priorities of the Congress, representing to the American people what needs to be done in this Nation. The budget, although it comes in a very thick book and has a very sterile appearance, in fact is a powerful and humane document about what our priorities are. It is the ultimate statement of what you believe in. I do not want to see a Government furlough, and I do not want to see a shutdown. I know the Presiding Officer does not want to see that. The American people certainly do not. In fact, it had a rather devastating consequence, far beyond what I thought would be the case, in States not only close to Washington, DC, but around the country. There is another reason I worry, and that is what we do know about the Republican budget, which to this point basically is tax cuts. It is not just a question of tax cuts, but the fact that the tax cuts are not paid for. There is no statement or sense or hint of where the money will come from.”