Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for yielding me the time and for leading on this important issue. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of my friend from Utah's amendment. As he mentioned, Mr. Chairman, you look at this crisis in our country, and I am so glad that Congress is taking a wide array of actions to address the opioid crisis in our country, because it doesn't affect just one community or another. Everybody might think ``mine is the only problem,'' and then you talk to other Members of Congress from around the country, and you find out they are experiencing the same kind of crisis. And it is widespread. It is killing people every single day. But as we are talking about on this amendment, Mr. Chairman, we are talking about children, children that are born to a mother that is addicted to opioids. I highlight Kemper, a young boy from my district in Slidell, Louisiana. He was born addicted to opioids because his mother, while she was pregnant, was addicted to opioids herself. Now, I wish that this was the only time that it had happened. Fortunately for all of us, Kemper is now a healthy young boy, but he spent his first 11 days of life in the hospital fighting to beat a drug addiction that was not created, of course, on his own. We would like to think that this might be an isolated example, but, Mr.…”