Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman. The majority leader, Mr. Speaker, regularly brings up that sequester started in the White House. He knows I very severely disagree with that. And he voted for a Cut, Cap, and Balance Act which had in that bill--which no Democrat, I think, voted for--sequester. And it was passed 5 days before our Republican friends, Mr. Speaker, alleged that Mr. Lew suggested that to Mr. Reid as a way we could get by the House's refusal, up to that point in time, to extend the debt limit, which meant we couldn't pay our bills. But I don't think that is very useful in discussing how we get by this loggerhead that we have met on the appropriations process. I served on the Appropriations Committee for 23 years before I became a leader, and we did pass bills--not always on time, but we had an ability, Republicans and Democrats working on the Appropriations Committee, working in the Congress, to get our bills done. Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether you recall. I presume you will recall that when we got to a similar impasse, Mr. Ryan, the then- chairman of the Budget Committee, Ms. Murray, the then-chairwoman of the Budget Committee in the Senate, got together and came up with some figures that we could agree on on a bipartisan basis. Until that time, we had the same kind of scenario that we are now confronted with. Mr. Speaker, it is my view that, unless we have such a meeting of the minds, we are going to put this country in another crisis of our own making.…”