Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from Oregon for his comments. One of the things that has concerned me since I came to the Senate is the fact that, in my first year alone, I believe we spent about $3 billion in disaster relief. Subsequently, it increased to $5 billion for disasters per year, and now it is about $7 billion in disasters a year. As an accountant, one of the things I have always said is, if you know something is going to happen, you ought to put it in the budget. So now you will find that there is $7 billion in disaster relief funding for each of the 10 years in this budget. Using these funds for fires and major disasters sounds like a good idea to me. I am a little bit rankled when I hear somebody say this budget is a farce. It is as good an effort as a person can put together in 6 weeks when there hasn't been one for 8 years. That effort involves a lot of research, going back to find out where the problems were, why it wasn't done, and what needed to be done. I am pleased with the budget. But, of course, the reason we have this process--in which we had the committee mark-up last week and considered a number of amendments and now will consider many more amendments here on the floor--is so that everybody can participate in seeing if we can complete the budget. It won't be perfect when we finish, but it will be better than it is right now, and it will be better when we start tomorrow morning.…”