Political Quotes

“as we know, the Senate is considering a stopgap--continuing resolution--to keep the government of the American people open for business. The stopgap, of course, helps us forget the fact that in November we had all the appropriations bills ready to go, but the leadership asked us to hold it off. Now, I am going to support this 1-week continuing resolution, because I believe we are close to a bipartisan agreement that would avoid the devastating consequences of a government shutdown and save the Congress from once again facing the disruption and humiliation of failing to meet Congress's obligation to fund the basic functions of our government. But we shouldn't be in this situation. We shouldn't have allowed partisan politics to once again turn a looming deadline into a political standoff and what is really a manufactured crisis. As I have said, our work could have been and should have been completed in November. We were prepared to do that. We were 90 percent to the finish line--98 percent, actually, to the finish line. Republicans and Democrats had worked together. But at the request of then-President-Elect Trump, all work ground to a halt. For 5 months we have faced one partisan obstacle after another from the Trump administration, including a demand to fund a misguided wall on the southern border at the expense of billions of dollars that would have to be paid for--not by Mexico or anybody else. It would be paid for by the American taxpayers.…”