Political Quotes

“I thank my friend from Florida for yielding. Let me at the outset thank the leadership in both parties for allowing this bill to come to the House floor. Whatever differences we have, I am sure today they will be resolved in a way that is fitting the Congress of the United States. This is a real issue. Those of us who live in New York--and, as my friend Congressman Engel said, this is not a New York issue per se because it affects 431 districts across the country, but those of us who live in New York, we see the reality of this every day when we see our neighbors, we see our constituents who are so severely afflicted by their work at Ground Zero. Many of these illnesses did not occur until several years later. But of the glass that is in their lungs, the toxins that are in their blood, all of that is now coming forward, and you see people in the prime of life, 40, 50 years old, people who would run marathons, people who were in the peak of shape, dying slowly in front of us. So this is a real issue. I understand the points the gentleman made as far as procedure, as far as funding. Quite frankly, I would agree with him on that. But when we look at the overall bill, when we look at the good that would come from this, we really shouldn't allow the firefighters, the police officers, the construction workers, the EMS workers to have to wait longer to get the treatment and the care that they deserve while we try to resolve our internal differences.…”