Political Quotes

“I greatly thank my close friend from North Carolina. The U.S. Geological Survey has to activate stream gauges and storm surge measurements. It's technical, but it's important. But 99 percent of the USGS is furloughed. The Small Business Administration Office of Disaster Assistance comes in in an emergency and tries to help small businesses that have been wiped out, which invariably happens and will happen with this storm, unfortunately. But they're all furloughed. They're not going to be able to be there. The Natural Resources Conservation Service, they play a critical role. Ninety-nine percent of those employees are furloughed. The Farm Services Agency, 99 percent of those employees are furloughed. That's the problem. They need to work as a team, and here we are with these bits and pieces of the government, and we think we're going to patch this up. We're not. The fact is that the whole of government needs to be put back to work. That's our argument. Let's do this the right way, not in this kind of piecemeal fashion. That's why we're forced to vote against these things. The fact is we voted to keep them open. The side that's proposing this piecemeal approach voted to shut down the government.”