Political Quotes

“Madam President, I want to make one other point after the eloquent comments of my good friend from Texas. We have already done something similar here. We are all breaking for lunch right now. My Democratic colleagues are going to go do their strategy sessions, and we are going to do the same. I implore my Democratic colleagues to go back to their leader and say: Hey, come on. Let's rethink this. Here is why. We have already done something similar. I was on the floor when two of my Democratic colleagues from Virginia asked for unanimous consent on a bill. Remember, the whole government was partially shut down. There was a partial government shutdown. They asked for unanimous consent on a bill to make sure that when the partial government shutdown was over, everybody would receive backpay. We are actually doing work on smaller but very important issues. I was on the floor when they did that. I certainly voted yes. By the way, that went to the President. He said he was going to sign it, and he signed it. That became a law just about 2 weeks ago, as we have been debating and trying to find a compromise. So the notion that we are not doing any work and that we are not passing any laws that are impacting Federal workers until the whole thing is over is actually not true. We have already done it. This would be analogous to what we did 2 weeks ago, and that was led by the Democrats. The thing about this Coast Guard bill right now is that it is very, very bipartisan.”