Political Quotes

“last week the Senate passed three important pieces of bipartisan legislation. It was really quite a productive week. We reauthorized the Federal Aviation Administration, which kept 80,000 workers, including safety inspectors, on the job. We passed a highway bill that keeps 1.8 million people at work building roads and bridges and dams. We reached a bipartisan agreement to rush relief to communities devastated by floods, tornadoes, and wildfires. So I was hopeful, as this week began, that it would be productive. I thought Congress might be able to set aside party politics to accomplish the important work of this Nation. Instead, the tea party has taken over again. The tea party Republicans have once again allowed partisanship to rear its ugly head. Now House Republicans, obsessed with pleasing a group of radicals-- the tea party, they are called--are refusing to give the Federal Emergency Management Agency the funding it needs to reconstruct ravaged communities across this great country, and they are threatening to shut down the government if they do not get what they want. It is bad enough that we cannot agree that victims of floods and fires should get the help they need without delay. We cannot even agree on what we have already agreed to. We spent months this spring and summer negotiating a deficit reduction agreement that allowed Congress to appropriate more than $11 billion in disaster aid for next year.…”