Political Quotes

“Here we go again. Obviously, we took a 5- hour break, but now we are back to not making priorities. The bottom line is, now we are up to $27 million out of this basket of money that the Secretary has to manage a Department that is actually increasing in size and increasing in complexity. This is a very worthy cause, and there is no question in anyone's mind, I hope, that colon cancer screening, for instance, is essential. Every American who falls within the guidelines should be encouraged to undergo the screening, but we have to set priorities. If we are going to increase further the funding into that program-- because as we heard from the subcommittee chair, we have already increased the funding--if we are going to increase it further, we have to look somewhere to decrease funding. That is not a magical pot of money that is endless. Literally, it is true that, sooner or later, the Secretary is going to have to take out loans to pay salaries in his Department because we will have drained the entire amount. Again, since the last vote series, which we had 1 a.m. eastern time-- it is now 9:20 eastern time--since then, we have drained that fund by $27 million. A lot of it transferred for good projects, but that is not the way we should be doing business here. When families in my district have a priority, they set a new priority. They say this family needs this a lot right now. They look into their budget and ask what they are not going to spend on.…”