Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, recently I met with leaders of the San Diego medical research community who had a unified message: We need to end the cuts in research that have slowed medical innovation for the last decade. This year I was proud to lead the bipartisan effort, along with over 200 of my colleagues, to push for an additional $2 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health. This is a very personal issue. Almost all of us know someone who is struggling with a disease where NIH funding is used to find a cure. That person could be a mother, father, family friend, or even more heart-wrenching, a child. I am thrilled that the spending bill before us this week avoids the cuts proposed by President Trump and actually increases NIH funding by $2 billion. We have seen what can happen when leadership takes a bipartisan approach: top priorities like medical research actually get funded. This isn't the bill that I would have written, but it is a compromise that I am very happy to vote for. Let's hope that Speaker Ryan has learned from this experience and will work with us on health care, on transportation, and other priorities moving forward. ____________________”