Political Quotes

“I want to thank the gentlewoman from Texas for yielding me the time. Madam Chair, we are in a situation where we absolutely have needs in terms of disaster victims, whether it is Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Louisiana, and other States that have been impacted by disasters. We have had hundreds of billions of dollars in damages in those States in just the last 4 years. It is extraordinary. I had the chance to travel to many of those States and territories to see firsthand the impacts, and I wanted to be very clear. Virtually what everyone said on both sides of the aisle, they are right in terms of what the disaster victims are going through. But I do not agree in what folks are prescribing the strategy to be. We don't need to stand here and see who can out-Puerto Rico the other. It is not a money problem. I have been through this with millions and millions of people. We have policy problems. There are literally tens of billions of dollars in the bank today that we are unable to get to disaster victims. Dumping more money on top of the existing more than $40 billion in the Disaster Relief Fund, and the billions and billions of dollars available today for Puerto Rico under the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program, that doesn't solve the problem.…”