Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will start with a story because I think a lot of us come to the Senate with a lot of experiences, a lot of common experiences, and I think the Senator from Alaska and I have shared this common experience of seeing the despair, looking at the statistics, but more importantly, in my case, in Indian Country, and in her case, working with indigenous people, seeing that so much more needs to be done; seeing the disparities in education, seeing the disparities in health care, seeing the disparities in housing, and recognizing that all of those things have huge consequences; seeing what high poverty does to people who are not given the right opportunities. I think frequently it is so important that we do something like this so we can begin that process of educating our colleagues on how this situation is different, what our experiences are. If you have not seen or been in Indian Country, if you have not looked at the statistics, it is alarming. It is absolutely alarming. The story I want to give before I talk about our legislation is the statistic on mortality rates. In this country, child mortality has decreased by 9 percent since 2000. That is good news. We are paying more attention, doing a better job at infancy, doing a better job raising our kids. The child mortality rate among Native children has increased 15 percent--increased 15 percent at the same time it has decreased in this country 9 percent.…”