Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for his indulgence, and I would be remiss to come back to the floor to simply say only in Washington can you have Members who claim they want to avoid a shutdown while they take every step to shut down the government. Only in Washington can you have Members who claim to support law enforcement while they promote a bill that cuts funding for law enforcement. Only in Washington can you claim that you want to secure the border while engineering a shutdown that will force Border Patrol agents to work without pay. Only in Washington can you claim that this so-called debt commission that they have designed will not harm programs like Social Security months after rolling out a plan--the Republican Study Committee in June--rolling out a plan that guts Social Security. My colleague from Pennsylvania is a member of that group. The gentleman from Michigan who spoke earlier, who apparently has proposed this amendment, is a member of that group. Why don't they be honest with the American people about their plans? Because they know the plan to cut Social Security is deeply unpopular, and, yet, they soldier on. Mr. Speaker, 24 hours, that is how much time we have. Defeat the previous question. Let's support the amendment to give an up-or-down vote on the bipartisan deal that Republicans and Senate Democrats have been working on. Let's keep the government up and running. Let's avert this extreme Republican government shutdown. {time} 1115”