Political Quotes

“The question is, Why do we need emergency funding? Some of my colleagues have argued that additional funds are not needed because there was enough money for the opioid crisis in last year's omnibus. Yes, it is true there is additional funding for these programs in the omnibus. I sit on the Appropriations Committee; I was one of many on that committee who worked very hard to fight for those dollars. But with spending caps in place, these increases are modest at best. The majority of my supplemental amendment appropriates resources to two programs: the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant and the Byrne JAG Program. These programs have been critically underfunded in recent years. For example, the substance abuse prevention and treatment block grant received a small increase in the omnibus. That was good, but the reality is that over the last 10 years, funding for this program has not kept up with health care inflation. So we have a 26-percent decrease in the real value of funding despite the small increase we got in the appropriations process. In order to restore the block grant to its purchasing power from 10 years ago--10 years ago, before we had the explosion of the opioid and heroin crisis--just to get back to that level, Congress would need to allocate an additional $483 million for fiscal year 2017. My amendment provides $300 million for this program. It is a downpayment--only a downpayment--on where we need to be.…”