Political Quotes

“For those of you who speak about the earthquake, you do not really understand the devastation. Let me point out to you that I spent 3 days there, 2 days at the epicenter of the earthquake where the building has fallen one full floor, where lives were lost, where apartment buildings split, where people are standing on the sidewalks with their children and their furniture, stunned; where hospitals are evacuated; where freeways are down. They are hurting. Some people have lost everything they have. People who thought they had a home, they did not have insurance, and it is gone. They have no place to live, and they do not understand why we in Congress would stand here and blow a lot of smoke about cutting the budget at this time when they are in crisis. They expect you to debate that at budget time. They do not mind a debate about cutting back the budget, but they really are going to think you are rather mean-spirited to use this crisis as a time to hold up an appropriation that could help them. I beg you not to do that.”