Political Quotes

“I appear in a very timely way to make clear that our military will be paid if the House Republicans do not shut our government down. But in the off chance that they do, because of Democrats, in the last shutdown we had, we got a bill passed that guaranteed that all of them will at least receive backpay. In earlier shutdowns, that was never a guarantee. So people were forced to come to work not knowing whether they would be paid. But during the last shutdown, in early 2019, I forwarded a bill to the floor. I used a procedural objection to recess at the end of a week. And using that objection, we were able to get a guarantee in place that all Federal employees, including members of the military, will not be punished when ne'er-do-wells and malefactors in the GOP decide to shut the government down. Why do I make it so partisan? It is because only the GOP ever threatens to shut government down. In 2013, 2018, 2019, right now--only the GOP threatens to default on the national debt. We in the Senate, with a little cooperation from our Republican colleagues, will pass an overwhelmingly bipartisan continuing resolution within the next couple of days. And if the House will only do their job and agree to be as bipartisan as the Senate is, nobody needs to worry about losing a paycheck. But at least we have put a guarantee in place that nobody serving our Nation, whether in uniform or otherwise, will be at risk of losing pay because of an unnecessary shutdown.…”