Political Quotes

“I wanted to come to the floor to talk about the deal the Senate will vote on sometime later tonight or tomorrow. Before I do, I want to say to my distinguished colleague from North Dakota, the chairman of the Budget Committee, as always, what an exceptional job he has done in laying out fact from fiction, the realities of the choices before us. I only hope that the revenue possibilities he clearly expressed exist as part of an equation to a solution could be invoked, but I am concerned based upon what the other side says. We have a deal before us that is a result of a manufactured crisis. The debt limit has historically been raised as a matter of course by both Republicans and Democrats, both sides, without conditions. Ronald Reagan did it 18 times without conditions. George W. Bush did it 7 times without conditions. But, no, not this time. For days, for weeks, this Congress has been held hostage by a radical few--a band of tea party tyrants--who believe their opinions, their values, their view of the world, their vision of government must be America's vision. It is not. In their world, there is no room for reasonable compromise, there is no room for fair and balanced budget approaches, the kinds of approaches to budgets I and many on this side have worked for and voted for throughout our careers in Congress.…”