Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. The cynicism of the debate today is why Congress is held in such low repute. We hear Republicans saying that a public health fund is a slush fund. This is a fund set up to keep us healthy, prevent diseases as long as possible, immunize our kids, provide mammography and PAP smears, services to women in need, to find birth defects early on, to help stop smoking, and they call this a slush fund. They're not trying to reduce this fund; their proposal is to eliminate it. The argument from the other side of the aisle is we'll still get those services. I don't know where we're going to get those services if the fund is eliminated and appropriations are being squeezed down. They call this a slush fund, but they are using it as a slush fund because they took the elimination of this fund to pay for this extension of student loan interest rates. {time} 1110 Then they eliminated this fund so they could use it for their reconciliation to the budget in order to make sure defense is adequately funded, to make sure that their tax cuts are kept in place. They're using it as a slush fund, and they're using the student loan issue to drive their agenda. I find that very cynical. I find that, in fact, quite repulsive, and I hope we will reject this bill.…”