Political Quotes

“today marks a sad and, frankly, shocking day for too many of America's children and hard-working families because it has now been 100 days since funding for the Children's Health Insurance Program and community health centers expired. History has shown us that there is a whole lot that can get done in 100 days. It took Thomas Jefferson only 17 days to write the Declaration of Independence; the brave allied forces who landed on D- day advanced through France and liberated Paris in only 80 days; and Congress managed to pass 15 major pieces of legislation during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first 100 days in office. Yet, here we are, 100 days past the deadline of September 30, and Congress still hasn't managed to pass long-term legislation to reauthorize what we call CHIP--the Children's Health Insurance Program--and to fund our community health centers. We have a strong bipartisan bill funding CHIP, which was passed out of committee. I give our chairman and ranking member kudos for working together. I was proud to work with them. It came out of committee with only one ``no'' vote and has waited and waited and waited on the floor of the Senate. Senator Blunt and I have a bipartisan bill to continue funding community health centers, and 70 Members of the Senate have signed a letter supporting long-term funding for community health centers, which expired September 30--100 days ago.…”