Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the news is good today. It looks as though we are close to a resolution, and what makes that resolution attractive to me is not just that we are going to see the government run, which is the job of this Congress--this is the first time, as we know, that Congress, the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court were controlled by one party--it is the first time that that has been the case in a government shutdown, so we know where responsibility lies. But that is the past. I want to look at the future. The future is, this should make it easier because of the discussions so many of us had over the weekend with Senators in our own party and the other party. Regardless of the party of any of us, I think we are reaching a place where we can get serious about negotiations on a whole lot of issues. Once this is behind us, after this vote later today, once the House passes the continuing resolution and once the President signs it, I am hopeful that we can get serious about a whole host of other issues. In Ohio in the last 2 weeks, two hospitals have closed down--one for- profit in Massillon, a small, industrial city not far from Canton, OH, and a not-for-profit hospital in Dayton, OH. Both announced the closure of those hospitals, and we know what that means to people in the neighborhoods, people in the region. It means slower response time, lost jobs--the loss of all the things that a good hospital means in a community.…”