Political Quotes

“If I might, I say to Mr. Costa that is exactly what he did. In the negotiations, before inviting the leaders in, agreement had been reached with both Houses. We were going to move forward. The President changed his mind, demanded $5 billion, and took credit. He said: I will shut the government down, and I will take credit for it. Indeed, the credit goes to him. The gentleman said things that are very interesting. The gentleman went back to the Gingrich shutdown. That reminded me, at that time, I was actually at the Department of the Interior. There was nobody in the Department of the Interior except three of us in that entire department who were working. Then there was the Ted Cruz shutdown, and then there were two other short shutdowns having to do with one or the other of the fiscal cliffs. In every case, our Republican colleagues--Gingrich, Ted Cruz, other leadership, and now the President--have used the American Government as a hostage to get something that they wanted. Senator Cruz wanted to kill the Affordable Care Act. I don't recall, but I think Gingrich was over some tax issues or some financial issues, fiscal issues. But in every case, they used the government as the hostage. Now, over in the Senate, Senate Majority Leader McConnell is cobbling together a piece of legislation that would affect the rest of Americans. Let me just show you some things here.…”