Political Quotes

“Just for the purpose of response, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate my good friend's offer on staying in session last week. It would have been nice if we'd have dealt with this 18 months ago. We've known it's been coming. We tried to do that twice. I'm not sure the President would have been around last week. Frankly, he spent the last 6 weeks crisscrossing the country, campaigning and bludgeoning people, as opposed to having a dialogue. He did not bother to invite the Speaker, the Majority Leader, or the leader of the Senate or the minority leader of this House to a meeting until the very last day--the very last day. Now, that suggests to us there wasn't a great deal of interest in serious negotiations. So, again, this process is going to allow that to occur. We're going to advance our bill through this Chamber. It's going to have incorporated some of the work in the appropriations process. It's going to help the Defense Department a great deal. We're waiting for our friends in the Senate to do the same thing. They're going to, undoubtedly, add some things. I think there will be a negotiation. I think we will end up in a good place. But we will preserve the spending reductions of the sequester in the final product of the bill. With all due respect to my friend, revenue's off the table. You had revenue about 6, 8 weeks ago with no cuts. This time I suspect you're going to get cuts and no revenue.…”