Political Quotes

“Mr. President, tomorrow night at midnight, unless steps are taken, we will be facing a government shutdown. When I say steps are taken, steps are taken to avoid that. That can happen one of two ways: That could be an agreement that funds the government through the end of the fiscal year, which would be September 30 of this year, and there are negotiations that continue on dealing with that issue, or there could be a short-term continuing resolution that would take us through the next week that would enable those who are negotiating a longer term agreement to continue their discussions and hopefully to conclude a successful outcome to those discussions. I want to remind my colleagues--and I believe I have been on the Senate floor a number of times speaking to this issue, but I think it bears repeating--why we are here, why we are in the middle of the sixth continuing resolution. This is the sixth short-term continuing funding resolution that we have had to live with since the end of the fiscal year, which was September 30 of last year. The reason we are here is because last year the Democratic majority in Congress failed to pass a budget and failed to pass a single appropriations bill. They didn't fulfill the most fundamental responsibility that we have to the American taxpayers; that is, put together a budget that funds their government. So we have funded the government through these successive continuing resolutions.…”