Political Quotes

“Let's put policy over politics by funding the government. What this reckless closing of the government has accomplished is to stall a lot of government agencies from doing their mission, and one of the most important agencies that has a mission that is irreplaceable is the NIH. Yet, if you look at the underlying bill--the Republican bill to fund the government, which we are willing to accept--it puts NIH at a really low amount for appropriations, so it's hard to take this claim that they want to help the NIH seriously. The Republican agenda is reflected in its budget. Republicans proposed a 20 percent cut to health, education and labor programs, and that's a $5 billion loss for NIH. What does that mean? That means that the NIH Clinical Center has to turn away hundreds of patients, many of them children who desperately need care. This is singling out NIH. What about the other important work that is done to prevent and cure diseases? What about the efforts for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? They are not going to be reopened by this legislation, and they detect and respond to disease outbreaks. The Food and Drug Administration, they're not going to get any money by virtue of this special singling-out bill. They won't even be able to do their routine inspections of food and drugs to protect the public from abuses.…”