Political Quotes

“I would like to just point out a couple of things so we get on the same terms here. I was actually here until the 23rd day of December, as were the Republicans appointed to be conferees. I don't know that Leader Pelosi had appointed Democrat conferees at that point. I don't think in that process she had yet, although she did somewhere thereafter. Maybe on the 23rd, but not in between. The Senate wasn't here. And even though we tried to get them to appoint conferees prior to that, they did not. So on the 23rd is when we finally said, It's over. They weren't coming back, and we ended up agreeing to the 2-month extension, which leaves us here. Now, my friend from New Jersey talked about this should have been done by January 17. Well, there's only one problem with that: the Senate didn't come back into session until the 24th of January. The conferees could have met during that period. In fact, we would have met during that period; but, frankly, there were Members--probably from both parties and both Houses--who were not available to meet. And I know for sure in the Senate, some of the conferees were not available to meet because they weren't exactly in the country. So that wasn't going to happened until we were both in session. I believe the State of the Union was Tuesday night, the 24th. I believe that's the day the Senate came back. I may be off by a day. But that's why this thing didn't start up.…”