Political Quotes

“Madam President, four times the House of Representatives has sent over continuing resolutions with various additions for consideration by the Senate. Each time Senator Reid and the majority party have tabled those provisions, essentially shutting them down without giving them an opportunity for a vote on the merits. The last time, though, I believe Senator Reid led his colleagues down a very treacherous path, because the provisions of this otherwise clean CR would have repealed the provision that carves out Congress and members of our staff and gives us preferential treatment under ObamaCare. The second part of it has to do with delaying penalties on individuals, just as the President has unilaterally done in delaying penalties on employers. There is no good reason for us not to pass both of those provisions. But instead of trying to deal constructively with the House of Representatives--which has sent four separate bills over here on the continuing resolution--the majority leader has chosen to stiff-arm each of those efforts. So when the majority leader comes to the floor and bemoans the government shutdown--something we all agree we should try our best to avoid--he claims they are willing to negotiate and the President is willing to negotiate a change in the outcome. But we know that is not true. We know each time they have shut out Republican proposals from the House of Representatives which would open the Federal Government with reasonable bipartisan agreements.…”