Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Garamendi and Congressman Tonko for their comments. It is a pleasure to be with them tonight, and also Congresswoman Michelle Lujan Grisham. She really has been such a leader, not just for New Mexico, but for the whole issue of health across our country. I am really pleased to join all of them. And I will just say, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, the American people should know, this past week we tried very hard to pass an amendment that would simply ask the executive branch to report back to us on how much money we were spending as a country in Medicare, Medicaid, at the VA, the Department of Defense, for certain classes of drugs in our country. Now, don't you think it would be right for us to know, since we are spending tax dollars, that if we are spending more money on, let's say, a diabetic medicine than a heart medicine, whatever medicine it is, it would be good for us to do cost accounting to go back and look at what we are paying? Do you know we were not able to get that simple reporting-back amendment on how much pharmaceuticals are costing the people of the United States, because the Republican members of our committee blocked it. {time} 1900”