Political Quotes

“I wish to thank my colleague from Alaska Ms. Murkowski and also the chair of the Appropriations Committee Senator Mikulski for their comments because I think, as Senator Mikulski said, the majority of the Members in this body believe it is important for us to keep the government open. We may disagree about the Affordable Care Act, but one aspect we ought to be able to agree on is that it is in the best interests of this country to keep government open. I believe the same is true in the House; that if the Speaker would bring up the Senate-passed CR, that is clean, that does not have any amendments on it, that extends funding for government through November 15, that accepts the top line numbers for the amount of money we would spend during that period, accept the House numbers, if the Speaker would let that be voted on, on the floor, I think it would pass the House. It is unfortunate that he has been unwilling to do that. But the reality is, as both Senators Mikulski and Murkowski said, a shutdown of the government is not just about what we are doing on the floor tonight or what the House is doing, it will have ramifications way beyond that. We had a meeting last week with some economists that included former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin. One of the things he said to us was that unlike the last government shutdown in 1995, when there was not a real long-term impact from that shutdown, we are looking at a real long-term impact from a potential shutdown.…”