Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have come through a crisis. It is not over yet because we don't have a law that has been passed by both Houses averting the shutdown of the government, and once it has passed both Houses--which we anticipate tomorrow--then it will be signed into law by the President, and we will avert the shutdown. Had there been a shutdown or, in the alternative, had a law proposed in the House of Representatives, H.R. 1, been law, what we would have seen is a number of the hunger programs we have being savaged. There would have been a huge savaging of the feeding programs around the world--USAID, an arm of the State Department, which saves untold thousands, if not millions, of lives, particularly of children. They have a program right now in Africa, for example, of just providing mosquito netting, which cuts malaria by 30 percent. But also, USAID uses a lot of American agriculture to help feed hungry populations. Those programs would have been cut significantly had H.R. 1, the House of Representatives' appropriations bill, been the final decision. Fortunately, it wasn't and, fortunately, for the hunger programs, both abroad and at home, the least among us will not have to suffer those cutbacks to the budget for the duration of this fiscal year--for the next 6 months. Even so, there were some significant cuts in what has been agreed to in the funding for hunger programs here in America.…”