Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to discuss the Bipartisan Congressional Reform Act I introduced with Senator Whitehouse and many of my colleagues. Last month, the Senate Budget Committee approved our legislation-- that is the Senate Budget Committee--by a vote of 15 to 6, marking the first major legislation reported by the committee on a bipartisan basis in nearly 30 years. I am pleased that 21 Senators have now joined Senator Whitehouse and me as cosponsors of this bill. Since I became chairman of the Budget Committee, we have had more than a dozen hearings on budget process reform. We have met with budgeting experts, including some outstanding State officials, and we have listened to insights and concerns shared by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Along the way, we collected a lot of good ideas that we tried to incorporate into our bill, and I thank all those who contributed. Now, this legislation will not solve all of our fiscal challenges. It does, however, represent a good-faith, bipartisan effort to reform our budget process in a way that encourages long-term planning, realistic and responsible budget assumptions, and the end to the brinksmanship surrounding our Nation's statutory debt limit. This bill will also make evident what needs to be done next. I think we struck a pretty good balance.…”