'I Am Super Offended': Lisa Murkowski Gets Heated On Partisan Rescissions

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Appropriations Committee markup meeting in July, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) spoke about rescissions packages.

Transcript

00:00Thank you Madam Chairman and I'm glad the conversation has kind of dialed back

00:06from re-litigating the merits of what we had in front of us last night and who

00:12supports global health and who supports or who doesn't support making sure that

00:19the starving children are fed. We do need to be asking ourselves how we move

00:29forward as appropriators and I appreciate your your statement Senator

00:35McConnell about about having the ability to advance these measures to the floor

00:43that's what makes us relevant there's a lot of good work that goes on here last

00:49night for me was very personally frustrating because it was these were

00:55measures that I cared about some of you had a different view but they were

01:00matters that we had authorized and appropriated to and had been signed into

01:04law now we were dealing with them. Senator Schatz you you made one comment that

01:10struck me you said all all we need to do is to kind of help address the challenge

01:18that we're facing here as appropriators and not being relevant is we need to find

01:22for Republican appropriators to basically basically help out I would I would dispute

01:30that I think what we need to find is if if there's going to be a rescission that

01:35moves forward it needs to be a rescission that is a bipartisan rescission from the

01:42beginning one where folks in the administration have come to us and have

01:46said do you realize that this is in this this measure related to to global

01:55economic disaster or child nutrition or whatever it may be to have that

02:00conversation to have that engagement with us to shape a package that we not

02:06just we as appropriators but we as members of the Senate who under article 1

02:12have this authority of the power of the purse to say you know what that shouldn't

02:18have been in there and I'm not quite sure who was responsible for it whether it

02:21was Samantha Powers or somebody else but it shouldn't be in there and we agree and

02:24there's a process that we can follow that will not divide us into partisan camps

02:32but will actually elevate the work that goes on here in the Senate in the

02:40Congress when it comes to to the power of the purse and appropriations I will

02:46tell you I am super offended I'm not frustrated apparently that's the word

02:51you're supposed to use when you're talking to me Murkowski is always

02:53frustrated about everything today when I see when I see the OMB director say tell

03:00us challenge us you guys should be more partisan what that tells me is there are

03:08people who don't want us to be relevant who don't want us to come together and

03:14work through these issues and these problems and so I'm going to take that as a

03:19personal challenge I'm going to say no I'm going to do everything that I can to

03:24make sure that we are able to do bipartisan initiatives that we are able to

03:31actually make our process work without having the OMB director be the one that is

03:37going to quote change the paradigm of the way that we do our jobs here they can

03:43have input that's totally fine that's totally legit but we we have a trust

03:49deficit that's probably an understatement but it's up to us to to address it in a

03:58way that is befitting of the responsibility that we have when it comes to to

04:05stewards of the taxpayer dollars so we got our work to do but but to the

04:10Merkley amendment if I may I'm going to oppose it Senator Merkley and I'm going to

04:16do so because I want to respect the jurisdiction that comes with the various

04:22committees that we have and this jurisdiction as the chairman of the

04:26budget committee has noted does not lie with us it lies with the budget committee so

04:32I'm going to I'm going to be pushing you Lindsay to make sure that we don't we

04:37don't find ourselves in this situation where we are delivered a holy partisan

04:42rescission package told take it or leave it and and put us in the same situation a

04:48rerun of what we had last night that's not good for those of us that have done

04:52that and it's not good for the institution

04:57you

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