Political Quotes

“I know we are in the middle of a discussion and certainly a debate right now about a budget resolution, and, obviously, I participated in discussions of how concerned I am about the priorities in the budget resolution. I think the people of Michigan and the country deserve a better deal. But while we are doing that, the clock is ticking on some very, very important programs where we actually have bipartisan support in committee. I want to thank Chairman Hatch and the Finance Committee, working with me and working with our ranking member, Senator Wyden, for moving forward last week on a 5-year reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, or what we call CHIP. The problem is this. Even though we passed it with only one negative vote and we had a strong bipartisan vote coming to the floor, my concern is that we have gone on to tax cuts. We are going on to a bill that includes Medicaid cuts and Medicare cuts and other debates. Yet we have this bipartisan effort that needs to get done because the funding ended September 30. It has been 18 days and counting. We will be counting these days because it has been 18 days since the Children's Health Insurance Program was stopped being funded. I am very concerned about this. I assumed that once we had agreement, we would be able to move something very quickly. It is deeply concerning to me that we are now in a situation where it is 18 days.…”