Political Quotes

“Mr. President, later this week we are going to have our first Republican Presidential debate, the official one that is on TV, and a lot of people are going to be watching. There has been a lot of speculation as to who is going to be in the debate, who is not going to be in the debate, who will do well, who will not, who will rise in the polls, and who will fall in the polls. Frankly, we don't need to wait for that debate because the Republican Presidential primary campaign is playing out right now on the floor of the Senate, I think, to the detriment of the institution. How else would you explain a threat from Members of this body and frankly from Members of the House--many of whom are not running for President--to shut down the government over the issue of funding for Planned Parenthood. We have been through this before. We have been through government shutdowns prompted by ideological politics before, and a lot of people got hurt--a lot of people got hurt. The life of a woman in Bridgeport, CT, was torn apart because her Head Start Program was shut down because of the Federal Government shutdown. She was just beginning a new job, and she had to make a new choice between continuing in this new place of employment that was going to lift her out of poverty, essentially sending her kids out on the street while they didn't have care, or leaving the job and taking care of her kids while Head Start was shut down. Those are the consequences of a government shutdown.…”