Political Quotes

“As this shutdown drags on--and I concur with the comments of my colleague from West Virginia--it is serious and having serious consequences. The American people are left to wonder why. Back here in Washington, D.C., you have all kinds of talking points and spin, and it circles around and can easily get very confusing as everyone seems to focus on the wrong things as to what caused this. And, really, it is very simple; and I think understanding it and getting Democrats and Republicans to stop talking past each other is the first step to getting out of this. We have to understand that basically when you pass a budget to fund the government, the first thing you argue about is how much money is spent on it; and we had that argument and, believe me, there are deep disagreements between the Republican House, the Democratic Senate, and the White House on that. But an agreement was reached between Speaker John Boehner and Harry Reid on the level of funding; and that level of funding, frankly, is vastly lower than Democrats want, and we were going to go forward with that until the Speaker changed his mind and decided that he wanted something else. So if you are wondering why Harry Reid, the Senator, the Majority Leader in the Senate, is upset about this situation, it is in part because he had a deal and the Republicans went back on that deal. But it gets worse than that.…”