Political Quotes

“Madam President, I want to inform my colleagues and the American people about some progress that has been made on a very important bipartisan piece of legislation, plus what a couple other committees are doing along the same line of keeping healthcare costs down--that we are making progress to reduce the price of prescription medicine for the American people. I have been tilling the fields of legislative policy long enough to know that we have our work cut out for us. The ranking member and I of the Finance Committee started out 6 months ago to cultivate a bipartisan consensus for much needed reforms. We knew that we had a long row ahead. Our efforts to reduce drug prices face big-time opposition from Big Pharma. As we worked side by side in a Republican and Democratic way, we planted the seeds to grow a strong bipartisan coalition--one strong enough, I believe, to withstand the influence of moneyed special interests. Now, it should be no surprise to anybody that Big Pharma and other stakeholders in the drug supply chain are working six ways from Sunday to throw sand in our gears. We know they will continue to fight us during the August work period. As a lifelong farmer from Iowa, I learned a long time ago that the fruits of one's labor will not be worth a hill of beans without proper groundwork. For months, we have been tilling the soil and fertilizing the legislative fields to bear fruit at harvest time.…”