Political Quotes

“a colleague recently described on this floor his experience flying in a private aircraft when a fire broke out in the cockpit of the plane. He observed that putting out the fire distracted the pilots from flying the aircraft and that they precipitously lost altitude. This tea party shutdown and the tea party's threat to our country's credit, like that fire in the cockpit, are distracting us from flying the plane. I dispute the notion that those who caused the shutdown have good standing to come to this floor and criticize the way the Obama administration is implementing a shutdown that we don't want on our side of the aisle and that the Obama administration does not want. The tea party and Speaker Boehner, for their insistence on lighting that fire in the cockpit, are answerable to history and their consciences. In the spirit of getting back to flying the plane, I will talk about, as I usually do, a real and looming crisis--not the manmade fire the tea party has lit in the cockpit of our government. That tea party shutdown could end tomorrow if the Speaker of the House would simply call up the measure the Senate passed. He refuses to do so, and it is his continued indulgence that keeps this shutdown going. Climate change is for real. It is not manmade, nor is it something the Speaker can turn off with a vote. It is coming at us, and it is time to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and ocean.…”