Top 10 Best Quotes on the Government Shutdown
With the American public angered by a government shutdown that has sent up to 800,000 federal workers home without pay and has threatened to derail a fragile economic recovery, both Republicans and Democrats have attempted to frame the crisis from their own vantage point. The week’s best quotes on the government shutdown include everything from finger-pointing, name-calling, calls to reason, and hot mic revelations.
1) “Save us from the madness. Deliver us from the hypocrisy of attempting to sound reasonable while being unreasonable. Remove the burdens of those who are the collateral damage of this government shutdown, transforming negatives into positives.”
— Senate Chaplain Barry Black, opening prayer on the Senate floor, Oct. 3
2) “We’re not going to be disrespected, We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”
— Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), the Washington Examiner, Oct. 2
3) “I really think Boehner needs to get some courage. Maybe he needs to take an afternoon off and golf and contemplate it and come back.”
— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Oct. 3
4) “I think if you’re the White House, you just sit back and watch.”
— Former press secretary Robert Gibbs, on MSNBC’s “Now with Alex Wagner,” Oct. 2
5) “This is much more like what I deal with Henry in the morning when he says he wants to say, ‘I want candy for breakfast.’ It’s really a tantrum; it’s a tea party tantrum. ‘You either give me my way, or we’re going to shut down government.’”
— Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Oct. 2, referring to her 5-year-old son, Henry.
6) “I think if we keep saying, ‘We wanted to defund it, we fought for that, but now we’re willing to compromise on this.’ … I know we don’t want to be here, but we’re going to win this, I think.”
— Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), caught on a hot mic, Oct. 3
7) “I am not a criminal. I am not a scoundrel. So they better get a different definition of me.”
— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on the Senate floor, Oct. 2
8) “When you don’t have a president, every congressman, every senator, every governor, thinks they’re the spokesman for the party. And the one that lights their hair on fire is the one that gets on the evening news.”
— Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, at the University of Utah convocation, Oct. 2
9) “It seems that there is nothing the media likes to cover more than disagreements among Republicans, and apparently some senators are content to fuel those stories with anonymous quotes. Regardless, my focus — and, I would hope, the focus of the rest of the conference — is on stopping Harry Reid’s shutdown, ensuring that vital government priorities are funded, and preventing the enormous harms that Obamacare is inflicting on millions of Americans.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Oct. 2
10) “Think about the precedent. What’s next? What if the Democratic extreme said, ‘Well we’re not going to sign a budget unless you do away with assault weapons?’ What if we’re not going to have a budget unless 20 people around here decide that everybody under the age of 40 should wear a tin hat around? This is not the way you govern a great country.”
— Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Oct. 1
– Nayomi Chibana
Feature Writer
