Craziest Government Shutdown Quotes

 Craziest Government Shutdown Quotes

The 10 Most Ridiculous and Outrageous Quotes about the Government Shutdown

By Daniel Kurtzman

1. "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-IN) on the government shutdown, Oct. 1, 2013

2. "We're very excited. It's exactly what we wanted, and we got it." –Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on the government shutdown, as quoted by the Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2013

3. "This is my idea of fun." –Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) on the government shutdown

4. "I said, like 9/11, 'let's roll!'" –Rep. John Culberson, describing his reaction at a meeting of Republican lawmakers planning to shut down the government, invoking the famous phrase used to fight 9/11 hijackers on Sept. 11

5. "Thing thing is...I need my paycheck. That's the bottom line." --Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) when asked if she would keep her government paycheck during the shutdown. (After she was criticized for her remarks, she later announced she would ask to have her pay withheld until after the shutdown.)

6. "We are winning...It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result." –a senior Obama administration official, quoted anonymously in the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 4, 2013

7. "The Park Service should be ashamed of themselves." –Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), scolding a park ranger for closing the World War II Memorial, after he voted to close the memorial as part of the Republican government shutdown

8. "Some idiot in the government sent goons out there to set up barricades so they couldn't see the monument. People had to spend hours setting up barricades where there are never barricades, to prevent people from seeing the World War II monument, because they're trying to play a charade. They're doing it because they just aren't serious about this… They like the shutdown.'" –Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on the closing of the World War II Memorial in Washington

9. "Democrats are voting to kill clean, no-strings-attached funding for veterans care because Obama told them to. That's sick … Democrats just curb-stomped veterans. Because Obama told them to.'" –Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) on a bill that Congress failed to pass which would have funded only veterans' benefits and nothing else

10. "If you go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany. Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, 'Accept the Nazis. Yes, they'll dominate the continent of Europe but that's not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We can't possibly stand against them.'" –Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), arguing during his 21-hour faux filibuster that funding Obamacare is like appeasing Hitler, Sept. 24, 2013