Budgetary Process Quotes

Reconciliation is a special budget procedure to change entitlement and tax laws. It cannot be filibustered and requires only a simple majority in the Senate to be passed. It is primarily intended for deficit and mandatory spending reduction.

Setting the state budget is one of the most important tasks we undertake at the state Capitol - because after all, it's the people's money - not the government's.

I think there's been a decline in the public's access to what's being done with their tax dollars, what's being done in their name. I hope that that will be repaired.

From now on, the government has to make its accounts public on a quarterly basis.

This is the first time a newly inaugurated president has had any impact on a current budget." What that means is that normally when a president's inaugurated in January, the budget for the first calendar year of his term or the first nine months is already done. So from January 21st all the way 'til October when the new budget's done, the president has to deal with the previous Congress' budget and has nothing to say about it. What they're saying is that Donald Trump has had a record-breaking, never-before-seen thing by having an impact on the budget in his first year.

We need more transparency and accountability in government so that people know how their money is being spent. That means putting budgets online, putting legislation online.

Reconciliation cannot be used to pass comprehensive health care reform. It won't work because it was never designed for that kind of significant legislation; it was designed for deficit reduction.

Nations in general, even under governments of the more popular kind, usually commit the administration of their finances to single men or to boards composed of a few individuals, who digest and prepare, in the first instance, the plans of taxation, which are afterwards passed into laws by the authority of the sovereign or legislature.

The budget is like a mythical bean bag. Congress votes mythical beans into it, then reaches in and tries to pull real ones out.

I am reluctant to intrude my views or in any way suggest what Congress ought to do, but I feel free to say to you that it would be exceedingly gratifying if Congress could clear all appropriation bills out of the way during the present session.