Political Quotes

“I am pleased that yesterday the Senate was able to come together and work out a bipartisan agreement to make some progress on approving President Obama's nominees. This is a great example of the kind of work I hope we can do more of going forward, because gridlock is getting in the way of progress on far too many issues that affect the families and communities we have a responsibility to serve. One of the most egregious examples that still remains is the Republican leadership blocking a bipartisan budget conference--and the regular order they called for--in order, it appears, to gain leverage by manufacturing a crisis come this fall. Democrats have come to the floor to talk about this a lot over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, it seems to be getting worse and not better. We have heard from more and more tea party Republicans about their latest brinkmanship threat. They are now saying: Defund health care reform or we are going to shut down the government. I wish I were making this up, but it is real. The House has already tried to repeal this law 37 times. In fact, just for good measure, they are voting on it again this week. We all know that is not serious. It is certainly not governing. It is pointless pandering, and it does absolutely nothing to help the families and communities we represent. There are so many real problems we all need to be focused on. We need to protect our fragile economic recovery and get more of our workers back on the job.…”