Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the other side of the aisle would have us believe that this shutdown is somehow a Republican-engineered shutdown. They would have you believe that the government only shuts down with Republican leadership, and we know that that's not the case. The government shuts down when there's a failure of the democratic process to work and parties to negotiate in good faith and the deliberative process of democracy to move forward. The President has absolutely shut that down with his refusal to negotiate. We had a government shutdown when Mr. Reagan was in the White House. Under President Reagan, the Democrat-controlled Congress shut the government down a total of eight times, for 14 days. So a Democrat- controlled Congress actually shut the government down under Reagan for longer than it has been shut down now. Again, under Mr. Clinton, the House also shut the government down. In each of those instances, there was something different than what's now--and that is that there were negotiations going on. President Reagan was negotiating with the House and Senate. President Clinton was negotiating with the House and Senate. But this President said absolutely no negotiations. This President will negotiate with Syria. He'll negotiate with Iran. He'll even have secret negotiations with Russia and secret deals. But he will not negotiate with the legislature. Now, what won't he negotiate over? He won't negotiate over the debt limit.…”