Political Quotes

“first I apologize for the hoarse voice. I have been recovering from a cold. But it is important for me to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the people from Michigan about what is happening, as everyone at home is scratching their head trying to figure out why, in the greatest country in the world, we have seen government services now shut down and why there are those who think it is all right for us not to pay our bills and default on the full faith and credit of the United States of America, and why folks aren't willing to just open the government, pay our bills, and then negotiate. In fact, we have been negotiating. We have negotiated on a lot. I am proud to say we negotiated a successful bipartisan farm bill not that long ago, a real deficit reduction proposal which actually passed the Senate with over a two-thirds vote. So we certainly are willing to negotiate. Our leader Senator Reid was willing to negotiate and in fact did negotiate with the Speaker of the House. As we all know, the Speaker called him in September and indicated he would like to see a 6-week extension of the current funding levels for the government while we were negotiating something more broadly on a budget. It was at a funding level which we don't believe is the right one in terms of investing in education, innovation, and creating jobs, but it was 6 weeks.…”