Political Quotes

“I know many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are deeply frustrated this evening. Once again, with only a few hours left on the clock, House Republican brinkmanship has us struggling to avoid burdening our families and our economy with more dysfunction and uncertainty. This pattern is simply unacceptable, and some of us, Democrats and Republicans, have been trying for months to break it. When the Senate budget passed, I was hopeful that we could move to a bipartisan budget conference where Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate could all come together, sit down, and try to work out our differences. Democrats tried to begin a budget conference 18 times. Many Senate Republicans agreed with us that we should continue negotiations and begin working toward that deal. Each time tea party Republicans and Republican leadership stood and said no. They made it very clear why: They believed they would have more leverage in a crisis--such as the one we are hours away from--than they had a few months ago when we were asking for orderly negotiations. Instead of working on a bipartisan budget that would strengthen our economy, tea party Republicans began manufacturing this crisis to defund the Affordable Care Act. This is a law, by the way, that is helping millions of Americans and beginning tomorrow, shutdown or no shutdown, is going to begin helping many more. Due to Republican refusal to come to the table, we are now scrambling to avoid a shutdown.…”