Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from Maine for the recognition. Amendment No. 3900, as Modified I want to commend Senator Collins and Senator Reed for their hard work and great leadership on this amendment, Senator Murray and Senator Blunt for bringing this issue before us, and the Senate for having the good sense to invoke cloture on it this afternoon. If anybody in the audience or in this room doesn't think this is an emergency, they should have been with Senator Collins and me 2 weeks ago at the CDC in Atlanta. We spent 4 hours looking at the depiction of what a Zika outbreak is going to look like if it doesn't stop and if we don't abate it. There have already been 1 million cases in the Caribbean, Central America, and South America and 500 cases in the United States of America, and it is going to grow. The faster we get our arms around it, the better off the American people are going to be. This is a lot of money, but it is only a pittance compared to what it would cost if the epidemic got out of control and we didn't stop it and defeat it. This money will go to Labor, Health and Human Services, the State Department, the CDC, and other entities to provide the education, training, and information necessary to get control of this disease. Remember what happened with Ebola. When it broke out and we finally got involved, only through CDC's ability to educate and also to contain and control the disease did we finally get our arms around it and stop the epidemic.…”