Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, the majority leader announced that the CHIP bill will be on the floor next week. CHIP and community health centers have always been, as the majority leader points out, a bipartisan priority. Unfortunately, this bill did not come out of the committee as a bipartisan bill, and negotiations were essentially not fruitful, and the committee reported out legislation to extend these important programs that included billions of dollars in partisan offsets. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the majority leader, does the gentleman know whether the $8.2 billion reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, which serves nearly 9 million children from low- income working families, will be offset? Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend. {time} 1115 Mr. McCARTHY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. First, let me set the record straight. Yes, it did come out of committee, and, yes, we did hold it up three times because your side of the aisle asked us to. But the reason why we are bringing it up next week is not because next week was the date we wanted. We wanted to get this done long ago. But the reason why we are doing it next week is because Minnesota is about to run out of money. And my dear friend knows because I sat with him, even this week, trying to work something out. Now, we know of these health centers, and in this bill we doubled the money for them. Of course, this bill is offset. We do it in a fiscally responsible manner.…”