Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to follow up on the remarks of my colleagues and the Senators who have spoken before me. It seems as though we have accepted this new normal, that shutting down the operations of the largest enterprise in America is acceptable. I concur with my colleague, the Senator from Alaska, about the real stories and real pain that is taking place because of this government shutdown. I commend some of my colleagues for their comments. When we read these tragic stories, whether it concerns NIH or it concerns our veterans or concerns our National Park Service, they say: Oh, but that part of the government we want to reopen. Does that mean that every other aspect of government remains closed until we can find that story? I point out stories to my colleagues that were in both The Washington Post and The New York Times today--stories we should be celebrating about--three American Nobel Prize winners. Does that mean we should now reopen the NSF, because if the National Science Foundation isn't funded, there may not be a next generation of American Nobel Prize winners? Do we have to bring in a story about some child being hurt because their food or their meat or their fish wasn't inspected correctly? I have to tell my colleagues, I spent a lot longer in business than I have in politics, and I have been involved in a lot of business negotiations.…”