Political Quotes

“It is slowly dawning on some of my Republican colleagues, who were so gleeful about shutting down the government 2 weeks ago, that there will be no reward for not ruining the economy. Some think they should get a prize when they stop the senseless punishment of the American people, paying our employees not to work, and inflicting needless disruption on the lives and costs to the taxpayers--billions of dollars. It appears that the public has had a hard time figuring all of this out, but has understandably concluded that most of the blame is due to the Republican crusade against health care reform and their reckless choice of tactics. Is it possible that something constructive can come from the Tea Party debacle? Absolutely. Maybe we can do our job and look for areas of potential agreement. Last week, Paul Ryan and I continued a long-standing partnership on agricultural reform. We led a debate showing the will of the House to limit subsidy for the terribly flawed and expensive crop insurance program by slightly reducing the lavish subsidies to the largest agribusinesses. It is not the final answer by any means. There is no guarantee the Ag conferees will pay attention to the will of the House, but it is a clear area in that we can reduce spending and improve programs for most farmers and ranchers. Maybe we could find bipartisan agreement that we should not slash infrastructure spending even further.…”