Political Quotes

“Mr. President, as the Republican leader noted, there are a number of Members here on the floor who have come en masse from a meeting we just held following the tabling of the latest House proposal that would keep the Federal Government operating and make sure all of our uniformed military would continue to get paid, together with the other operations of the Federal Government. It is clear that it was under the pressure of the knowledge that we were coming to the floor to ask for unanimous consent and the knowledge of how, frankly, untenable it would be to object to that that the majority leader has quite skillfully come to the floor to try to preempt this issue. The truth is that none of us should be under any illusion that the majority leader has done anything other than make it more likely that we will have a shutdown of the Federal Government tonight. The House has sent over several reasonable proposals which would keep the Federal Government operating and which would also make sure our troops would be paid--not just uniformed military but other government personnel performing important jobs. Rather than calling us in yesterday after the House acted--we know that perhaps the majority leader and other Members enjoyed watching a little bit of professional football yesterday--they waited until this afternoon to cut the legs out from under the House proposal and make it much more likely that the government will shut down.…”