Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I thank him for giving us the opportunity to vote this evening on the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. I thank you and Congresswoman Maloney for your leadership on this issue, as well as the entire New York delegation. Mr. Speaker, any time we enter a discussion of 9/11 we are entering sacred ground. It is a place where there should be no disagreement as to our obligation to those who helped dig out and try to help clean up and recover at the scene of 9/11 at Ground Zero. When 9/11 occurred, I don't think there would have been any question in anyone's mind that responding to it in this particular way was an emergency. It was an emergency. If there were ever an emergency in our country, responding to 9/11 was one. And so the objection that our colleagues make about paying for this, maybe we shouldn't pay for it. But we are. It's an emergency. It should be under emergency spending and investment. But in order to say if we don't want to add to the deficit we will pay for it, there is a pay-for in the legislation that is about eliminating opportunities for tax evaders to avoid taxation, using the benefit of that to help make the people who came to the rescue and help rebuild and recover whole.”