Political Quotes

“I would like to underscore for a brief moment what our leader has said: Default would be devastating to this country. Closing the government is awful for our country. Yesterday we all saw for the first time, after the government has been closed for too many days, when we are on the eve of default, some real progress-- Leader Reid and Leader McConnell coming together on the outlines of a plan which made a great deal of sense, where each side had to give but could accept. And all of a sudden at the last minute, as the locomotive to avoid default is heading down the tracks and getting some steam, Speaker Boehner throws a log on the path. This is wrong. He knows his proposal--we don't even know what it is yet. They have to tweak it probably to try to appease the hard right. But he knows his proposal with the measures in it already that have leaked out would not be signed by the President or pass the Senate. So instead of doing the right thing, looking at the Senate bipartisan proposal and moving forward on that, Speaker Boehner decides to light a match and throw it on the gasoline that is already all over the place. I hope he will desist. We all have seen that the House can't lead in this regard. They can pass a lot of one-House bills, but they can't get anything done. Let him desist. Let him defer to the Democratic and Republican leaders here in this body so we can avoid default, open the government, and get back to America's business. I yield the floor.…”