Political Quotes

“Mr. President, like the majority leader, I was here the last time there was a government shutdown. I never believed it would reach that point. I certainly didn't believe it would be a long shutdown, but it turned out to be over 2 weeks before it was over. It was a period of profound embarrassment for all of both political parties who served in Congress that it had reached a point where our efforts to find common ground had failed, and we had basically failed by closing down the government and calling an end to basic government services. The Senator from Florida went through a partial list. The list could go on and on. What about the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Men and women who risk their lives every day guarding the most dangerous people, what is to happen to them as we shut down the government? He raised questions about our efforts to monitor terrorist activities. Those efforts are not only exclusively among the military. He mentioned the intelligence-gathering operations of the United States. I don't think most people outside our walk of life have any idea how many men and women get up every single morning, monitoring transmissions of information, monitoring activity all around the world, looking for that one shred of evidence that there is something dangerous about to occur. These are Federal Government employees, subject in many respects, many of them, to a government shutdown.…”