Political Quotes

“Four years ago, we had a Government shutdown. Congress failed so miserably in its responsibilities to fund the agencies of Government, we actually shut down agencies. We sent Federal employees home. They were paid later on even for the time they missed. We barred the door when they wanted to come back to work, and the Republican leaders in Congress said: We're going to prove a point. They certainly did. They proved they could not pass the spending bills on time; they could not maintain the orderly flow of Government services to the people of America. That was 4 years ago. You would think that over time the Republican leadership in the House and Senate would have learned from that experience. Last year, we had a little different experience. In the closing minutes of the session, we were presented with a 4,000-page budget bill, an appropriations bill, which literally no Member of Congress was able to read, and we were told: Take it or leave it. We either pass this and go home or sit around here for weeks, if not months. The bill passed. A lot of us, with regret, voted for it saying: What is the alternative? This year, we are going into a new phase, a new chapter in the Republican congressional leadership when it comes to budgetary responsibility.”