Political Quotes

“Mr. President, usually by this time on a Friday, or even a little earlier, I have had the pleasure of going back to Iowa on the weekend. I would much rather be doing that. Obviously, we have problems that have to be worked out, and there is reason for staying around this weekend, particularly for those of us who do not miss votes, and we do not want to miss a vote, hopefully, to keep government functioning. There is one advantage of not being on an airplane going back to Iowa on a Friday when I do not have committee meetings and constituent meetings: I have been able to listen to a lot of the speeches today. We do not get that opportunity Monday through Thursday very often. It is quite a pleasure to be able to hear my colleagues speak, as they have on both sides of the aisle, so strongly about differently held views in this body about the budget issues and subsidiary issues that are being discussed at this time. Listening to the debate, I have come to the conclusion that it was one big mistake that we did not get appropriations bills passed last year. I hope people on the other side of the aisle realize if those appropriations bills had been passed, we would not be here today worrying about shutting down government and reaching some gigantic compromise. I suppose on the other side of the aisle there is a lot of ill feeling about not taking advantage of the fact that last year there were 59 Democrats and only 41 Republicans in this body.…”