Political Quotes

“There is a lot of talk of cliffs here in our Nation's Capital. We have fiscal cliffs that we faced with the debt ceiling. There was the sequestration cliff. We had, obviously, the cliffs surrounding the government shutdown. This week, we face a Homeland Security cliff. Because our Republican friends have been unable to reach agreement and have held hostage the budget of the Department of Homeland Security, we face a situation where we will either shut down those operations or, hopefully, people will come to their senses and take action. But, again, it is government by cliff. In March, we are facing the SGR cliff. If the government doesn't move forward to deal with a meaningful solution to the sustainable growth rate, we are going to see a dramatic reduction in government reimbursement under Medicare to providers. And looming in the background--something that we talked about last summer because Congress refused to deal meaningfully with transportation funding--there will be another cliff May 31 as the transportation fund loses its ability to fund. Already, there are programs around the country in local and State government that are trying to factor in reductions of important construction work that they aren't certain they can do this summer. Well, we are putting in the background another cliff.…”