Political Quotes

“I would just say, as the gentleman knows because I have talked to him about it, I have been trying to get an agreement on caps since January. I talked to Senator McConnell; I talked to Senator Shelby; I talked to Ranking Member Granger; obviously, Mrs. Lowey, the chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. I have worked almost ceaselessly on trying to get a caps deal, which I think all of us think is absolutely essential. Very frankly, I think there are those down at the White House--and I specifically reference the Acting Chief of Staff, Mr. Mulvaney--who believed that a caps deal was not the policy they thought ought to be proceeded on and would have preferred and talked about having either a sequester, which I think neither side thinks would make much sense, either on the defense side or the nondefense side--but that a CR was a preferred alternative and, frankly, a negotiation at the very latest moment was a strategy. I witnessed that, as the gentleman knows, the Republican Senators tried to negotiate with the White House so that the Republican White House and the Republican Senators tried to negotiate a caps deal and could not. So, it had nothing to do with Democratic participation at that point in time. Now, what we have done, as the gentleman knows, is we have, in effect, adopted a level of spending to which we have marked our bills.…”