Political Quotes

“this evening we had a vote that I find to be extremely concerning. Once again, after 8 weeks of trying to work out some kind of an agreement with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to overcome a Republican filibuster--changing our jobs bill over and over and over again, and every time there was a change, then there was something else and something else--we finally hit a brick wall tonight, when we didn't know what else to do. Once again, we did not have one Republican colleague willing to vote with us to overcome a filibuster. We have the votes on the floor to pass this jobs bill, which includes incredibly important benefits for people who are currently out of work, to extend unemployment benefits. People who have worked hard all of their lives, through no fault of their own, find themselves in this situation, and they are asking us to simply help them be able to keep a roof over their head and food on the table for their families and maybe a little bit of gas in the car so they can go look for work, while we can continue to focus on creating jobs in what has been a terrible economic crisis for our country. We have the votes. If we were doing a majority vote, we would have the votes. We have more than enough votes, but what we don't have is enough votes to overcome a filibuster. That takes at least one Republican colleague, and we don't have that. We don't have any at this point.”