Political Quotes

“I was about to say there is no more honest Member of this body than the Senator from Iowa, who spoke a moment ago. When he lays out the case for this particular facility in Ames, IA, I do not think any of us can quibble with that. That is not the point. The point of this amendment is literally to help the chairman of the Appropriations Committee resist the very persuasive cases that every one of us can make that some great project that needs to be completed or started needs to be part of this very special supplemental appropriations bill. We are hoping to make his job a little easier in the future so he can say: No, these bills are going to be clean. This is a bill to fund the war. It is not to complete a research facility and do other activities that may be good ideas but have no place in this bill to fund the war. Let them go the regular process. I can make the case there is something that relates to our ability as first responders to deal with an emergency from a terrorist threat in the State of Arizona. We are trying to get some money to prevent our hospital emergency rooms from closing down because we are having to treat illegal immigrants with health care under a Federal mandate, a Federal law, which we are happy to comply with, but which costs our hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars every year. We would like reimbursement for that so those emergency rooms will not close down, as they had to, but can stay open.”