Political Quotes

“Mr. President, if standing in this Senate and asking Republicans and Democrats to come together to preserve and build medical research is a waste of time, what in the world are we doing here? If you were asked to take the Federal budget and put your priorities in there, maybe No. 1 would be national defense. Well, I might make that No. 1 as well; but I can tell you, No. 2 is medical research. Because what happens when you reach a point where you cut off medical research? These researchers leave the laboratories and say: Honey, I don't know if I will have a job here next year. Let's start looking someplace else. That is not an unusual thing to occur. So the next generation of researchers are being discouraged by the uncertainty of funding, and this notion that we have to get spending under control--how much does it cost to find a cure? What does it cost to have no cure? Let's get down to the bottom line here. We are talking about how long people stay in the hospital or whether they are alive at the end of the experience or not. Some of these medical treatments they have to turn to are extremely expensive, unless you can find a cure at the front end of it. And you don't find it by saying, Well, maybe next year we will spend some money on medical research. That isn't the way it works. You want to have a good doctor you can trust from year to year, not a new one every year with a question mark. The same thing is true with researchers.…”