Political Quotes

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am glad that Mr. Joyce is still on the floor. Mr. Joyce, I think, put his finger on the problem, and the problem is: Gee, I really like the Interior bill. It has been reached in a bipartisan fashion, and it is wonderful, but, by the way, the package is not perfect because it doesn't do what I want done or what the President of the United States wants done on one specific bill, Homeland Security. My goodness, I don't know why we didn't have an opportunity to conference on that bill. You brought it to the floor on December 20, 10 days before the end of the year--10 days before the end of the year. If it was so important, why did we wait 11\2/3\ months to bring it to the floor? How could we conference a bill like that? There was no time. The reason you didn't bring it to the floor is you didn't have the votes. Mr. Joyce, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Cole all came to this floor when we considered another bill that was what the United States Senate Republicans wanted in their bills, and so we said we need to open up this government. Mr. Graves talked about and Mr. Joyce talked about consensus. Mr. Graves used the word ``consensus.'' Hopefully, we will have a consensus on this floor. Shutting down the government of the United States is stupid, irresponsible, and dangerous. That ought to be a consensus on this floor.…”