Political Quotes

“as we all know, our government is now in its second full day of a shutdown. Public opinion is swinging against what is happening. As that occurs, it has been interesting to me to see that the talking points have changed on the part of the congressional Democrats. We have just seen an example of that on the Senate floor. Let's first look at a few uncontested facts. Our government has been operating since September 30 of last year under a series of continuing resolutions--CRs. In other words, Congress has passed a series of temporary funding bills instead of enacting appropriations for the full fiscal year. This is not an ideal practice--and there is plenty of blame to go around--but it is generally considered better than allowing funding to lapse and the government to shut down. We have heard about generals and Pentagon officials decrying the practice of continuing resolutions. I can assure my colleagues that generals and defense officials like government shutdowns far less than temporary spending bills. So let's not say we are taking the advice of our military leaders in shutting down the government. The last CR was adopted to run until midnight of January 19, this past Friday night. That was the date on which our Democratic colleagues decided not to extend temporary funding for the entire Federal Government for 1 more month.…”