Political Quotes

“The gentleman talks about a bipartisan agreement. He does not talk about the stark fact that the House did its job. We passed bills. We passed 96 percent of the funding of the government. The Senate, led by Republicans, prior to the end of the fiscal year, passed 0 percent. It is hard to come to an agreement when the Senate doesn't pass anything. Nothing. Zero. Mainly because they needed the President to say: Simon says. I know that, for a fact--based upon conversations with the leadership of the Senate, that the President signing off, and we know that the Acting Chief of Staff, when he was here in this body, voted to shut the government down and voted against opening up, and said we ought to have a sequester for this fiscal year--that that was his position. It was Mr. Vought's position as well, who is the acting director at OMB. A mirror, Madam Speaker, in my opinion, of the Acting Chief of Staff. So for the Republican whip to say, oh, gee whiz, we are wringing our hands, and we passed partisan bills, of course we passed partisan bills because the gentleman's side would not work with us on our bills. That was the strategy, I would suggest, Madam Speaker, not simply a difference of opinion. As a matter of fact, on the defense spending that the gentleman mentions, I know for a fact, because I talked to them on the Republican side in both of the committees on appropriations and authorizing, the 733 figure that we used was an acceptable figure.…”