Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, Thank you, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Pallone, Representative Burgess, and Ranking Member Barton. I'd like to thank Senators Bayh and Collins for their leadership on this bill, the Senate companion to H.R. 4689 which I introduced with my friend and cochair of the Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease, Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey. The poet Robert Browning once wrote, ``Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.'' Unfortunately, the ``Golden Years'' can be the worst years for Americans afflicted with Alzheimer's and their families. We've worked with the Senate to engage in a bipartisan, constructive process with stakeholders to reach legislative language and move this bill forward. After all, Alzheimer's is an equal-opportunity disease. My father was a milkman, my mother the valedictorian. My father always said it was an honor that my mother married him and that if Alzheimer's was determined by the strength of your brain, ``Your mother would be taking care of me instead.'' He took care of her in our living room in Malden, Massachusetts for 10 years as she suffered from Alzheimer's. I'm thinking of them both today. Alois Alzheimer first discovered the plaques and tangles in the brain that cause Alzheimer's in 1906--within the very same year that my mother was born. At the time, doctors believed that dementia in the elderly was a normal part of the aging process that was caused by the hardening of the arteries.…”