Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) very much. And thank you for pointing out the foolishness, the nonsense, and even the hypocrisy of what's going on here. My colleague Mike Thompson, with whom I share a good portion of northern California, very eloquently pointed out a real problem. When the duck hunters can't hunt, we've got a problem. Opening day, how many days to opening day? Zero. It was supposed to open today. Mr. Thompson pointed out that the refuges are closed up in the northern part of the State of California. How about elk hunters? Elk hunters out there, opening day, today. The refuges are closed, and a good portion of the Federal forests also are unavailable. Let's see, pronghorn hunting in northern California and southern Oregon was supposed to start today. Not on the refuges. They're closed. Well, if you are a fisherman and you want to fish in the refuges, don't go today. They're closed. And, of course, the hunters. I think I'll just leave this one up here. These are folks that really get agitated. They have every reason to be agitated. This is nonsense. I really wanted to take a few moments to explain to the American public what is actually happening here. We came up on this shutdown presumably because we couldn't agree to a budget. The House of Representatives passed a budget in March. The Senate passed one in late March, early April. The Senate asked for a conference committee. They appointed conferees.…”