Political Quotes

“So here we are, Mr. Speaker. We are 14 days into the government shutdown, the shutdown that has cost this country money, has created enormous anxiety on the part of the Federal workforce, the contract workforce, the entire country. In fact, there was a meeting of all of the leaders of the world over in Asia, and we weren't there because of the government shutdown. The Chinese, of course, took advantage of it. Both the President and the Prime Minister were over at this meeting of world leaders, trying to suggest to them that it is time that the world became ``de- Americanized''--I think that was their term--because we can't get our act together. We can't even fund our own government. We can't even decide whether or not we are going to pay off our debts on time. And all of this, apparently, we are told, Mr. Speaker, was an idea that came from the Ted Cruz Tea Party wing of the Republican majority to shut down the government until they could have their way on what they call ``ObamaCare.'' Even though President Obama ran on the Affordable Care Act, which is its proper name, and was elected with 5 million more votes, still, they wanted to stop it, to gut it, to gut its principal provisions. So here we are, 14 days into a government shutdown, which is really an embarrassment to the entire institution, but it certainly ought to be to the House majority.…”