Political Quotes

“Senator Obama and I have offered an amendment relating to medical research on traumatic brain injury. This is the x-ray of an American soldier who has returned from Iraq having suffered an explosive blast injury. Mr. President, 1,700 of our soldiers have returned with traumatic brain injuries. This is a very severe case, but this soldier, thank God, survived. But 1,700 soldiers have faced this injury, and 62 percent of the soldiers exposed to blast injuries have traumatic brain injury. Senator Obama and I have taken money out of our own projects in this bill--a million dollars each--to put it into medical research at the University of Chicago so we can use the latest technology to diagnose and treat traumatic brain injury. The U.S. Army has reported in their official documents that they have a gap of $20 million necessary for research for diagnosis and treatment of soldiers who have suffered these traumatic brain injuries. This does not take money out of the bill. Today, we have added $1.8 billion in emergency spending. We just shifted $6.7 billion. We are asking for $2 million from our own projects for research for traumatic brain injury for these soldiers. Please, if you believe we should do everything we can to help these soldiers, I hope you will support the amendment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.”