Political Quotes

“I rise in opposition to the underlying bill. Ours is a compassionate country. We have leaders who can put themselves in the shoes of Americans who are struggling, doing their best. We have compassionate leaders on both sides of the aisle. This is why it is so inexplicable that the underlying bill, as well as bill after bill brought by the Republican majority to this floor, makes cuts after huge cuts to people's programs--not corporate programs, not programs that hit Wall Street, but people's programs. And again today, in this agriculture spending bill, we are targeting cuts that hit women, infants, children and seniors in Hawaii and nationwide. In my district in Hawaii, 19.5 percent of our residents experienced food hardship in the last year. Let me repeat: nearly one in five people in my district did not have enough money to buy food that they and their family needed in 2010. Today's bill would cut crucial nutrition programs for thousands of Hawaii's most vulnerable and hundreds of thousands all across the country. And while the richest in our country continue to get billions in tax breaks and the oil companies continue to get their billions in tax breaks, why are we balancing the budget on the backs of women, infants, children and seniors? First, today's bill makes a $650 million cut to the women, infants and children, WIC, nutrition program for fiscal year 2012. This would cut as many as 350,000 eligible low-income women and young children from the program.…”