Political Quotes

“Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon for the time. I understand that he could have precluded that, and I appreciate the fact that he gave me the time. Mr. Speaker, we've heard on the floor about all the Americans who would suffer the very real effects of a government shutdown. Those effects might include slowed economic growth, which means, of course, fewer jobs; a weakened housing market; delayed pay for our military families; delayed benefits for our veterans; unanswered Social Security applications; proceedings and more. Republicans are holding these government services hostage. Let me repeat that. The Republicans are holding those services hostage. And it turns out that their ransom demand is the passage of divisive social policy, because Mr. and Mrs. America know, my colleagues and Mr. Speaker, that we have got an agreement on numbers. We've got an agreement on how much to cut, a compromise. Henry Clay said, ``To compromise is to govern.'' We cannot govern if we do not come to agreement. But we haven't come to agreement now. Democrats have proven more than willing to compromise. We've met Republicans more than halfway, only to find out that Republicans cannot stand up to the most extreme in their party who demand that we have an agreement on a social policy totally unrelated to the deficit.…”