Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley. He has been a strong advocate for policies that uplift rural communities, and he gets to all of Iowa's 99 counties every year. I would bet Chairman Grassley probably has a lot of stories to talk about as to what is going on because he is in touch with the folks back home who are in these rural communities. Montana is similar. We both come from States that have strong ag heritages, and we have a lot of rural communities. We need policies that will uplift these rural communities and, importantly, strengthen our families. It is time we see some real change--to stop kicking the proverbial can down the road and OK these consecutive, short-term reauthorizations. That is something DC is pretty good at--short-term reauthorizations, like the 39 we have seen in the last decade with TANF. What we need are permanent reforms rather than these temporary extensions. I thank Senator Grassley for joining me today in this colloquy and for his commitment to getting something done. The chairman is a ``getter done'' kind of leader, and he couldn't have said it any better than in his talking about removing families from being dependent to being independent. We have plenty of provisions here to make sure we take care of those families who, maybe, don't have a choice if there are addiction issues or if there are childcare problems. We have to make sure they will have the ability to get the help they need, but we want to move them into the workforce.…”