Political Quotes

“Thank you. Mr. President, I couldn't help but think, watching the debate, that it has been more than 2 weeks since we had an all-too-familiar stalemate in Congress that prevented the passage of commonsense legislation. As a result, it triggered the across-the-board budget cuts better known as sequestration. When these automatic budget cuts first became a possibility, everybody said that no Congress would be irresponsible enough to allow them to go into place. Well, in the weeks leading up to sequestration, we heard almost daily from Federal agencies, defense contractors, and Members from both sides of the aisle about how harmful these cuts would be. Notwithstanding the talk about how ridiculous it is to let them go forward, the deadline for sequestration has come and gone. Now the focus appears not to be upon the wide swath of harm that is beginning to descend on communities across the Nation but instead on the closure of White House tours and whether we are going to have the Easter egg roll. Come on. I hope the American public and I hope the press and everybody else will focus on how serious these cuts are. In fact, to simply accept and avoid fixing these indiscriminate and harmful cuts is irresponsible. They are slowly being implemented, and they have already begun to affect our States and communities. I was up in Vermont this weekend for 3 days, and I was all over the State.…”