Political Quotes

“I rise in strong support of the flood insurance fix bill on the floor today. I urge my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to come together and pass this first crucial step toward getting it right with the National Flood Insurance Program. It is important for America. It is important for millions upon millions of American homeowners, not just in Louisiana, not just in Florida, but in every State. Every State in the country is absolutely affected. I also specifically urge my colleagues to defeat the Toomey amendment, which I think is very well intended but will not get the job done, and to waive the budget point of order, which is a largely technical point of order. I will explain each of those in turn. First of all, I will explain the need for this bill to get things right. All of us came together over a year ago and passed the so-called Biggert-Waters Act, to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program and to reform it in important ways. We needed to do that broad-brush. The program needed to be continued, and not just in short-term fits and starts, which had been the pattern for many years. In fact, in 2010 it was so bad that we actually let the program lapse four different times by inaction, shutting down thousands upon thousands of real estate closings that we needed to build our economy, shutting those down every time. So we needed that reauthorization. We needed and still need reforms of the program.…”