Political Quotes

“We begin the second week of the Republican government shutdown. The proximate cause was the Republican effort to delay money that the government needs to fund the Affordable Care Act, to stop the Affordable Care Act. Well, it is also now the second week of the Affordable Care Act, which clearly now will not be repealed, defunded, or delayed. Just this last weekend, we all approved legislation that would pay all of the Federal workers on furlough the salaries they lost by being sent home making them whole. This is important because they had nothing to do with this travesty. But now, we're paying them not to work. One wonders why we're still in the middle of this exercise. Is there any way out of this cul-de-sac? I find it encouraging that some of my Republican friends are talking about negotiating. We've been waiting for 6 months for negotiations to begin on the budget. Hopefully, Republicans will appoint conferees, and we can get down to talking about what level of spending we want, need, and can afford. But maybe we can help things along in dealing with another area--to come together on the looming deficit of infrastructure. America's civil engineers tell us that more than $2 trillion is needed over the next 5 years for roads, bridges, transit, sewer, and water. These deficiencies create uncertainty, congestion, safety, and health problems, and undercut America's long-term productivity. Why don't we come together to address this problem?…”