{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ContentRecord_id=755bf696-00cf-4665-b89b-bc23c8e2ea43", "MURRAY-RYAN BUDGET AGREEMENT: Senate Passes Key Procedural Hurdle to Sign Budget Agreement Into Law", "2013-12-17", "2013", "2013-12", "Democrat", "House", "WA", "Patty Murray", "M001111", "www.murray.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "(Washington, D.C.) \u2013 Today, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted 67-33 to clear a procedural hurdle and move to a final vote to pass the federal budget agreement Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) reached with Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) last Tuesday.\u00a0 \r\nDemocrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last week to pass the budget agreement.\u00a0 To become law, the agreement still must pass a final, simple majority vote in the Senate tomorrow.\u00a0 Once passed, it will only require President Obama\u2019s signature to become law. \r\nBefore the vote, Senator Murray spoke on the Senate floor to urge her colleagues to support the budget agreement. \r\nKey excerpts from Murray\u2019s speech: \r\n\u201cSo when the government was finally reopened and the debt limit crisis averted, people across the country were hoping Democrats and Republicans could finally get in a room, make some compromises, and take a step away from the constant crises. That\u2019s why I was so glad that part of that crisis-ending deal was creating the budget conference that many of us here, on both sides of the aisle, had been trying to start since the Senate and House passed our budgets seven months earlier.\u201d \r\n\u201cMr. President, the Bipartisan Budget Act puts jobs and economic growth first by rolling back sequestration\u2019s harmful cuts to education, medical research, infrastructure investments, and defense jobs for the next two years. If we didn\u2019t get a deal, we would have faced another continuing resolution that would have locked in the automatic cuts\u2014or worse, a potential government shutdown in just a few short weeks.\u201d\u00a0 \r\n\u201cMr. President, this bill isn\u2019t exactly what I would have written on my own, and I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not what Chairman Ryan would have written on his own. It\u2019s a compromise\u2014and that means neither side got everything they wanted, and both sides had to give a bit.\u201d \r\n\u201cThis bipartisan bill takes the first steps toward rebuilding our broken budget process.\u00a0 And hopefully, toward rebuilding our broken Congress. We\u2019ve spent far too long here scrambling to fix artificial crises instead of working together to solve the big problems we all know we need to address.\u201d \r\n\u201cThere is so much more we need to do to create jobs, boost the economy, replace the remaining years of sequestration, and tackle our long-term fiscal challenges fairly and responsibly. So I am hopeful this deal can be just the first of many bipartisan deals. That it can help rebuild some trust, bring Democrats and Republicans together, and demonstrate that government can work for the people we represent.\u201d \r\n\u201cWhen we come back next year, I am ready to get to work with Chairman Ryan or anyone else, from either side of the aisle, who wants to build on this bipartisan foundation to continue addressing our nation\u2019s challenges fairly and responsibly. It won\u2019t be easy\u2014but the American people are expecting nothing less.\u201d \r\nFull text of Murray\u2019s speech: \r\n\u201cMr. President, for the past few years here in Congress we\u2019ve lurched from one budget crisis to another and from one fiscal cliff to the next. \r\n\u201cWhen one countdown clock stopped\u2014it wasn\u2019t too long before the next one got started again.\u00a0 \r\n\u201cThe uncertainty was devastating to our fragile economic recovery.\u00a0 The constant crises cost us billions of dollars in lost growth and jobs. And the continued across-the-board cuts from sequestration were hurting our families and communities, and cutting off critical investments in economic growth and national security programs. \r\n\u201cMr. President, after the completely unnecessary government shutdown and debt limit crisis two months ago, the American people were more disgusted than ever at the gridlock and dysfunction. \r\n\u201cThey were sick of the partisanship\u2014sick of the showboating and saber-rattling.\u00a0 They were tired of turning on their televisions at night and seeing elected officials saying \u2018it\u2019s my way or the highway.\u2019 And they had no more patience for politicians holding the economy and the federal government hostage to extract concessions or score political points. \r\n\u201cSo when the government was finally reopened and the debt limit crisis averted, people across the country were hoping Democrats and Republicans could finally get in a room, make some compromises, and take a step away from the constant crises. \r\n\u201cThat\u2019s why I was so glad that part of that crisis-ending deal was creating the budget conference that many of us here, on both sides of the aisle, had been trying to start since the Senate and House passed our budgets seven months earlier. \r\n\u201cMr. President, the budget conference began at a time when distrust between Democrats and Republicans couldn\u2019t have been higher. We had just two months to get a deal to avoid lurching toward another crisis\u2014and most people assumed there was no way the divide could be bridged. \r\n\u201cBut Chairman Ryan and I got together, we started talking\u2014and we decided that instead of trying to solve everything at once, the most important thing we could do for the families we represented was to end the uncertainty, and start rebuilding\u00a0 some trust. \r\n\u201cWe weren\u2019t going to spend the next eight weeks sniping at each other from our partisan corners. We weren\u2019t going to use what was said in the room to launch political attacks on the other. And we weren\u2019t going to try to tackle the larger challenges we both knew were critical\u2014but weren\u2019t going to be solved right now. \r\n\u201cSo we focused on what was attainable, worked together to find common ground, and looked for ways we could compromise and take some steps toward the other. \r\n\u201cWe both thought the least we should be able to do was find a way to replace some of the across-the-board cuts from sequestration, and agree on a spending level for the short-term so we could avoid another crisis. \r\n\u201cI know some of our colleagues wanted to keep the sequester caps\u2014but Democrats and many Republicans believe it makes sense to replace these meat-ax cuts with smarter and more balanced savings. \r\n\u201cMr. President\u2014we spent seven weeks working on this. I worked closely with House Budget Committee Ranking Member Van Hollen, as well as my colleagues here in the Senate on and off the Budget Committee. \r\n\u201cAnd I am very proud that late last week, Chairman Ryan and I reached an agreement on the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. \r\n\u201cThis bill passed the House of Representatives on Thursday on a vote of 332-94, with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans. \r\n\u201cAnd I come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to support this bill here in the Senate, and send it to the President so it can be signed into law. \r\n\u201cMr. President, the Bipartisan Budget Act puts jobs and economic growth first by rolling back sequestration\u2019s harmful cuts to education, medical research, infrastructure investments, and defense jobs for the next two years. \r\n\u201cIf we didn\u2019t get a deal, we would have faced another continuing resolution that would have locked in the automatic cuts\u2014or worse, a potential government shutdown in just a few short weeks.\u00a0 \r\n\u201cOver the past year I\u2019ve heard from so many people across my home state of Washington who have told me how sequestration has hurt their families, businesses, and communities. From the parents of children whose Head Start programs were shut down or cutting slots, to the seniors wondering if their Meals on Wheels would continue, the scientist and doctors whose investments in cutting-edge research and medical cures were cut off or threatened, the construction workers who lost their jobs when projects were put on hold, the small business owners whose revenues were declining due to the cuts and uncertainty, and so many more. \r\n\u201cFor them, the cuts from sequestration were senseless, they were real, they were hurting, and they were only going to get worse. \r\n\u201cSo I am very proud that our bill replaces almost two-thirds of this year\u2019s sequester cuts to domestic discretionary investments. This won\u2019t solve every problem sequestration has caused, but it is a step in the right direction, and a dramatic improvement over the status quo. \r\n\u201cMr. President, over the past year I\u2019ve also talked to workers at Joint Base Lewis McChord, Fairchild Air Force Base, and elsewhere who had been impacted by sequestration, and who were very worried about how another round of cuts would affect their jobs and families. \r\n\u201cI\u2019d heard from military leaders who told me sequestration would impact our national security if it continued. And from companies that do business with the Defense Department that the uncertainty and cuts were hurting their ability to hire workers and invest in future growth. \r\n\u201cSo I am very glad this bill would prevent the upcoming round of defense sequestration and provide some certainty to the Pentagon for the upcoming years. \r\n\u201cSecretary of Defense Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dempsey have both expressed support for this bill\u2014as have a number of my colleagues here in Congress who have spent the last few years highlighting the impact of continued sequestration on our national security and defense workers. \r\n\u201cMr. President, the increased investments we get from rolling back sequestration over the next\u00a0 two years are fully replaced with a smarter, balanced mix of new revenue and more responsible spending cuts. \r\n\u201cExperts and economists have said the responsible thing to do is increase investments now, while our economic recovery remains fragile and workers are still fighting to get back on the job, while tackling our deficit and debt over the long-run. \r\n\u201cAnd this bill moves us in the direction of exactly that. \r\n\u201cWe\u2019ve cut our deficit in half over the past few years, and this bill adds to the $2.5 trillion in deficit reduction done since 2011, with an additional $23 billion in savings over the next ten years. \r\n\u201cMr. President, this bill isn\u2019t exactly what I would have written on my own, and I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not what Chairman Ryan would have written on his own. \r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a compromise\u2014and that means neither side got everything they wanted, and both sides had to give a bit. \r\n\u201cFor example, I was very disappointed we weren\u2019t able to close even a single wasteful tax loophole that benefits the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations. \r\n\u201cI had also hoped that we could extend critical support for workers fighting to get back on the job, and I was very disappointed that Republicans refused to allow that to be a part of this deal. \r\n\u201cWhile I certainly would have liked to replace more of sequestration, I know it was difficult for many Republicans to accept any increases in the BCA caps at all. \r\n\u201cAnd I also know many Republicans had hoped this would be an opportunity to make the kind of Medicare and Social Security benefit cuts they\u2019ve advocated for in the past, but I fought hard to keep them out. \r\n\u201cMr. President, this deal is a compromise, and it doesn\u2019t tackle every one of the challenges we face as a nation But that was never our goal. \r\n\u201cThis bipartisan bill takes the first steps toward rebuilding our broken budget process.\u00a0 And hopefully, toward rebuilding our broken Congress. \r\n\u201cWe\u2019ve spent far too long here scrambling to fix artificial crises instead of working together to solve the big problems we all know we need to address. \r\n\u201cWe have budget deficits that have improved but haven\u2019t disappeared\u2014and we have deficits in education, innovation, and infrastructure that continue to widen. \r\n\u201cThere is so much more we need to do to create jobs, boost the economy, replace the remaining years of sequestration, and tackle our long-term fiscal challenges fairly and responsibly. \r\n\u201cSo I am hopeful this deal can be just the first of many bipartisan deals. \r\n\u201cThat it can help rebuild some trust, bring Democrats and Republicans together, and demonstrate that government can work for the people we represent. \r\n\u201cMr. President, I urge my colleagues to support the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013. \r\n\u201cI want to thank Chairman Ryan for his work on this with me over the past two months. \r\n\u201cAs well as Ranking Member Van Hollen, and every member of the Budget Committee here in the Senate who worked so hard to pass a budget, start a conference, and get a bipartisan deal. \r\n\u201cWhen we come back next year, I am ready to get to work with Chairman Ryan or anyone else, from either side of the aisle, who wants to build on this bipartisan foundation to continue addressing our nation\u2019s challenges fairly and responsibly. \r\n\u201cIt won\u2019t be easy\u2014but the American people are expecting nothing less. \r\n\u201cThank you, Mr. President\u2014I yield the floor.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/newsreleases?ContentRecord_id=755bf696-00cf-4665-b89b-bc23c8e2ea43"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.021342981606722, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": 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