Political Quotes

“I came to join my colleagues on the floor this afternoon to talk about and to call on our colleagues in the House--those Republicans who have been taking this irresponsible action--to stop what they are doing and help us resolve this government shutdown. We are involved in a completely manufactured shutdown of our government. This is something that didn't have to happen. Right now, there is a majority in the House ready to pass a bill to keep our government open, to start it back up again, to end this crisis. But here we are. We are in the midst of the first government shutdown in 17 years because a small minority of the minority party in the other House is holding this government hostage so it can pursue its agenda of trying to end the Affordable Care Act. I don't know why they don't want to make sure that people in this country can get access to health care. I am not going to talk about that this evening. This is irresponsible. We are already seeing the effects of this crisis in New Hampshire and across the country. We have thousands of Federal employees in my State of New Hampshire who could face furloughs. That includes workers at our Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Those folks are from Maine and New Hampshire, but they are looking at furloughs. We have already heard from over 300 civilian technicians for the National Guard in New Hampshire who were notified they are going to be furloughed.…”