Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. As I understand what the gentleman is saying, if the Senate can't get 60 votes--which, of course, we have seen the gridlock for a long period of time where the Senate can't get 60 votes--that we're not going to go anywhere from the offer that he's made to pass something that can, in fact, garner 60 votes in the Senate. I regret that the Senate, frankly, didn't get 60 votes for our offer. And he is correct that he got a few more votes for H.R. 1 than was gotten for the Senate majority leader's counteroffer. But the fact of the matter is this is really an issue between the Republicans and the Democrats. Senator McConnell has said, as I know the majority leader says, we'll pass what the House passes. That's what he said. Now, if that's the case, then we need to pass something that can garner 60 votes over there. We know that H.R. 1 couldn't get 60 votes. We know that Senator Reid's proposal couldn't get 60 votes. And if we're going to move this government forward and not fund it on 2-week cycles--and Senator McCain has said that funding the Defense Department on 2-week or 3-week cycles is undermining our national security. So there is no disagreement that doing things 2 weeks at a time does not make sense.…”