Political Quotes

“we are in day 4 of a tea party Republican shutdown. We need to be very clear as to how we got here. The Senate majority leader negotiated with the Speaker of the House, and after a long negotiation in which the Senate made major concessions, we agreed to pass a 6-week funding bill for services of the government, to keep services open while we negotiate the larger issues around the budget. We passed a bill with the funding levels asked for by the House Republicans. Republicans asked that we continue funding below the levels we believe are necessary to grow the economy for 6 weeks. Rather than having a government shutdown, at the time we believed it was in the interests of the American people, of all of those who provide those important services to us, that we, in fact, agree with the House on a 6-week extension. We sent it over to them, asked for by the Speaker, agreed to by the Senate. There it has sat. Let me quote again from Congressman Dent--a Republican colleague of Speaker Boehner's--who said last night on ``PBS NewsHour'': I do believe it's imperative that we do have a clean funding bill, a straight funding bill to fund the government. That was the intent of the Republican leadership all along. But obviously there were a few dozen folks in the House Republican conference who were not prepared to vote for a clean bill and that is why we are in the situation we are in. ``A few dozen folks''--part of this tea party wing.…”