Political Quotes

“Several members of the south Florida congressional delegation have been working on an amendment that would postpone the August 22 cutoff date of SSI payments to U.S. legal residents and extend the payment of these benefits until September 30. My colleagues from Florida, Mrs. Carrie Meek, Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, and Mr. Clay Shaw, and many other Members of Congress have worked in a bipartisan manner to help legal residents who reside in this country legally, who pay their taxes, who came here seeking Democratic freedoms from tyranny or economic opportunity and prosperity for their children. It is these same individuals who are now members of our elderly population who live in terror that their sustenance, their SSI benefits, will be cut off. SSI benefits, as all of us know, apply only to those who are over 64 years of age, blind or disabled. They are not a free ride. They are a means of survival for our elderly and disabled who have no other way to sustain themselves. How can we, Mr. Speaker, as legislators and representatives of these same people, their children and their grandchildren explain to them that even though they have worked and paid their taxes and served their country they will have to fend for themselves?”