Political Quotes

“Mr. Dicks has the right idea. What we ought to vote on today is a 1-week extension that's clean, that just gets that done and keeps everybody going in the government, including the military, and then we should resolve our differences. I think that's what we ought to be doing this morning, but what's standing in the way of that is this values debate that I talked about earlier. Look, it's a position that we understand, which is that the majority party does not want to continue Medicare as we've known it for all these years. We strongly disagree with them, and we are prepared to have the fight to say why America needs Medicare as it has always been; but that disagreement should not shut the government down; that disagreement over values should not mean that the functions that people have paid for in their taxes don't go forward. Let's not shut the government down over this values debate. Let's have the values debate as the government continues to operate, and by all means, let's protect Medicare. Mr. McGOVERN. I am the final speaker on our side.”