Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who preceded me said he is a freshman. I have been here for 33 years. For 23 of those years I served on the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee. I served under some extraordinary Republicans and some extraordinary Democrats who chaired that committee. The ones I served under made sure that the NIH got the resources it needed to investigate, research, and try to come up with the cures that will ameliorate the afflictions of mankind from a health perspective. Of the sponsors of this bill, 134 of them voted for the Ryan budget. The Ryan budget--had it been adopted, had it been implemented--would have cut the National Institutes of Health by $6 billion. The budget that we are going to consider will still require reductions in NIH funding by perhaps as much as 80 times to 100 times the money that is theoretically in this bill. By the way, there is no money in this bill. This is an authorization. As I am sure Ms. DeLauro, who is the ranking member, has pointed out it provides no money. Many of you, perhaps, are going to vote for a budget that will cut NIH; but you are going to pass a bill, and that is what Mr. Collins apparently is concerned about, because we are saying that this is a facade, a pretense of support. Paper will not help pediatric research. Money will, investment will. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.”