Political Quotes

“I thank you, Mr. Cohen. I want to thank you for organizing this event. The group that is here tonight, the class of '06, was a very tight-knit group. Every Wednesday we would meet in the morning. Gabby was one of the leaders of that group. She was an outstanding Congresswoman. She sat with me on the Armed Services Committee. She had an Air Force base in Arizona, and she was tenacious in terms of the Defense authorization bill markups ever year in terms of making sure that that base was fully protected and represented to the maximum extent. She also was a huge advocate for the post-9/11 GI Bill. Some of us remember that struggle to expand the GI Bill and to restore the benefit for soldiers and veterans and their families that had deteriorated over time, giving again the full tuition benefit for a 4-year college within the State in which the servicemember resides, and to extend that benefit to spouses and children. Just a few days ago actually, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced the 1 millionth enrollee in that program. Again, Gabby was at the absolute beginning of that struggle which again had to overcome active resistance from the then-Bush administration. There were negotiations that finally got that measure passed and through. Again, a million families of servicemembers have benefited from it. By the way, an interesting parenthetical observation was that when that program went online, it had a huge technological computer malfunction.…”