[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15417]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                GRIDLOCK

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, my friend the Republican leader is reciting 
facts that are not real. Everyone knows what has happened in this body 
and in the House of Representatives the last few years--gridlock. 
Republicans in the House cannot agree with Republicans in the Senate, 
and it appears Republicans in the Senate cannot agree among themselves. 
So for my friend to talk about how great things are going is not 
reality.
  We need to start working together, not apart. And, working with 
Republicans, we find it is very difficult to develop any kind of 
partnerships, as we always did in the past until Republican leaders 
took over the Congress.
  I would hope my friends the Republicans would understand we have to 
start doing things to help the country. We are in the situation we are 
in. It is September 30. The country will be out of money in just a few 
hours. Why do we wait until the last minute and then only provide 
enough money to get us to the first part of December?
  We have received word that the House Speaker is going to resign. Why? 
He is resigning because everyone knows he cannot deal with the people 
he has to deal with in the House. He has tried very hard, and it hasn't 
worked.
  I would hope my friend the Republican leader would start talking 
reality, not come in and boast about how great the country is doing 
under Republican leadership. We have gotten nothing done under the 
Republican leadership.
  I am reminded of what Albert Einstein said when he defined insanity 
as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. 
That is what we have been doing here. We have votes on everything, 
everyone knowing what the results are going to be. The latest episode 
was--what a waste of our time--we had a vote here to defund Planned 
Parenthood. It didn't even get a majority of the Republicans--well, it 
got a majority of the Republicans; it certainly didn't get a majority 
of the Senate. It didn't get a majority of the Senate and certainly 
didn't get 60 votes, which they were trying to do--revoting on things, 
always knowing the results are going to be the same. It appears that 
Albert Einstein had a few organizations in mind when he gave this 
definition of ``insanity,'' and one of them, as he looked forward, 
would be this Republican Senate we have.

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