Political Quotes

“I wasn't planning on coming to the floor this evening; but when I heard my Republican colleagues' Special Order that was just completed, I couldn't help but come down because I think I have to correct the record on many of the statements that they made this evening about Medicare and their efforts with regard to Medicare. First of all, I have to point out that when Medicare was first adopted in the House and in the Senate back in the sixties when President Johnson was in office, the Republicans overwhelmingly opposed it. They were opposed to Medicare. They voted against it. It would never have passed if it was for their votes. It only passed as a Democratic initiative. And over the years, Democrats have been the ones to protect Medicare. Republicans have consistently opposed Medicare, tried to repeal it, tried to privatize it, voucherize it. And basically as a Republican Speaker once said--I was here at the time when Newt Gingrich became the Speaker back in the mid-nineties--he said that we want Medicare to wither on the vine. And that's basically what the Republican leadership has been doing consistently in the 20-something years that I have been in Congress. Certainly, if you look at the budget that was adopted by the Republicans last year, it does exactly that. The Republican budget would end the Medicare guarantee, replacing it with a voucher in 2022.…”