Political Quotes

“we are being given an extraordinary constitutional argument, namely that when the President of the United States exercises his constitutional right to veto, he is then to be held responsible for a shutdown of the Government. That is of course nonsense but it is confirmation of what we have here: people who want to make very drastic changes in public policy, who lack the two-thirds that the Constitution says you need to override a veto, who in the absence of the two-thirds want to hold the Government hostage. But even on its own terms the arguments fail, because the problem is that the appropriations bills, this one included, were not passed by this congressional majority until months after they were supposed to. We are in a crisis in part because of the absolute incompetence of the majority, which kept them from passing the great majority of appropriations bills for months, did not get any passed on time, or maybe one. That is why we are in this crisis. The Constitution allows the President to veto a bill, and then we have time for him to have the veto override considered, and then negotiations. When you wait 2 rac{1}{2} months after the deadline and pass the bill, you have lost your right to complain about a veto.”