Political Quotes

“I am glad to join this debate, which throughout the afternoon has been peppered with the assertion that either Majority Leader Reid or the President or Democrats in general will not negotiate--that we will not negotiate. I remember when I was younger there was a radio commentator, a man named Paul Harvey, and his little motto in his radio bits was to surprise you with ``the rest of the story.'' On ``will not negotiate,'' we don't even have to go to the rest of the story. Go to the rest of the sentence. The rest of the sentence is that the President and the majority leader will not negotiate--while the other side is holding hostages, while the tea party is holding hostages. Here is what our former colleague, my former ranking member on the Budget Committee, Senator Judd Gregg, has said about this: A small group of Republican legislators led by the junior Senator from Texas, decided to take as hostages government operations and the raising of the debt ceiling. Those are exactly the hostages, Federal employees who cannot work, people and businesses that want or need Federal services, those families we have heard so much about today who lost loved ones on the field of battle and cannot get their death benefits. There is an even bigger hostage out there, which is the threat of a catastrophic default which would be the result of a failure to lift the debt limit.…”