Political Quotes

“I have never been a sentimental person--I have never tried to be one--but today I can't help but think back to a time when keeping the government open and funded wasn't a last-minute exercise. Looking at the clock now, we are almost 14 hours away from what could have been another Republican shutdown of the Federal Government. This kind of brinkmanship is totally unnecessary. Although we will likely avert a shutdown tonight, Republicans brought us dangerously close to a shutdown. This continuing resolution only funds our government through December 11, as I said earlier. That means that within the coming weeks, we need to negotiate with Republicans to keep our government open. Yesterday Senator McConnell finally took Democrats up on our call to begin budget negotiations. I welcome that, and I welcome Senator McConnell to the table. We should have started this process months ago, but better late than never, so I am pleased he has come around. Lifting the sequester has been one of my top priorities for years, and I am hopeful that we can finally achieve this key Democratic goal. Just take what it has done in the past--just take one entity. The National Institutes of Health lost almost $2 billion and they have never gotten it back. It has been devastating to the most prestigious, important medical research facility in the world. That is what sequestration did.…”