Raphael Warnock: “I rise tonight in our moral moment in our Nation. As we debate this bill, so much is on the line. The healthcare of over…”

“I rise tonight in our moral moment in our Nation. As we debate this bill, so much is on the line. The healthcare of over 16 million Americans--750,000 of them Georgians--is on the line. Food for hungry children in a wealthy nation, where one in five children are already food insecure. They don't know where their next meal is coming from. Their livelihood, their welfare is on the line. The well-being of seniors in nursing homes and the disabled who rely on Medicaid and those who care for them is on the line. The fate of rural hospitals in Georgia, in Alaska, in Louisiana, in little towns all over this Nation that are right now barely hanging on is on the line. And the scraps that they are throwing them, while cutting them, will not save them. And my friends on the other side of the aisle know it. They know that these scraps that they are throwing at rural hospitals will not save them. And so in a very real sense, lives are on the line. We are in a moral moment because something else is on the line. I submit that the character of the country is on the line. In a real sense, the question tonight is, Who are we? Not who we tell ourselves we are, but who are we really? What and who do we care about? What kind of nation are we? And what kind of people do we want to be? Who matters, and who doesn't? Who do we think is dispensable? And no place is the answer to that question clearer than in a nation's budget.”