Political Quotes

“that is why we have had so much support for this amendment. The bill is so large, some people have had trouble seeing the significance of it. Let me quickly mention two aspects of it: One is money, one is moonshot. Some people say: Where is the money? This is not a money bill. This is an authorization bill. The money bills are in the Appropriations Committee, and they have been generous. In March, the Congress addressed $4.7 billion in the omnibus appropriations bill toward opioids. In the bill--which we should approve tomorrow for the next fiscal year--there will be another $3.8 billion. So that is $8 billion within a few months for the opioids crisis. The second is moonshot. Some people say this needs a moonshot. It does need the energy and resources of a moonshot, but, unfortunately, this isn't a crisis that we can assign to a Federal agency in Washington and say: Let's fix it in 10 years. What we can do is everything we can think of to do to create an environment so that doctors, nurses, judges, patients, parents, and everybody in communities that are affected by the opioid crisis can deal with it there, and we do our best to do that. For example, Senator Portman's STOP Act addresses fentanyl and other synthetic, illegal drugs being mailed into this country through our Postal Service from China. Fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than an opioid pill, 50 times more dangerous.…”