Political Quotes

“just a week ago the American people were able to breathe a collective sigh of relief--and I think all of us did in this Chamber as well--as Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate finally pulled back from what would have been a financial catastrophe. We had a potential default of our country's bills. There was a potential government shutdown, but that was averted, and we passed a budget with no time to spare. It was a good thing to do on a bipartisan basis, to be able to show that we could work together, develop a bipartisan budget. I believe it was 3 a.m. when we had the final vote on early Friday morning, but we put that in place and had some confidence at that moment that we were going to be moving forward with a comprehensive budget--a comprehensive appropriations process--that would allow us to say to the American people that we were addressing all of the needs they care about: security, growing the economy, making sure we are investing in middle-class families, strengthening our defense, and so on. Now, not even a week later, Republican leaders are back to their old tricks again. We are quite shocked to see that rather than giving the appropriators the opportunity to put together a comprehensive appropriations process, a comprehensive budget to be able to move forward on all of the needs of the country, what we are seeing is potentially a trick to undo the bipartisan budget agreement through the backdoor.…”