Political Quotes

“I thank Senator Stabenow. She is exactly right. A couple of times, she used the term ``blank check.'' When people join the Army, people become marines, people go off to a service academy, and people enlist in the National Guard, essentially they sign a blank check cashed by all of us who care so much about protecting our country. Senator Stabenow has been, with Senator Tester, one of the real leaders on this. You know, it used to be, many years ago, when it became clearer that veteran after veteran after veteran--young veterans in those days, 20 years ago, not that far removed from Vietnam--were coming down with these illnesses, Congress decided bipartisanly, almost unanimously, that rather than make every single veteran, every soldier, every marine, and every sailor prove to the government, prove to the VA that they should be eligible for healthcare coverage based on the illness they got because of Agent Orange--Congress decided that we shouldn't make every single person go through proving this--through that process. So what did we do? We made a list of illnesses that typically come from exposure to Agent Orange, and any veteran who was sick from one of these illnesses, no questions asked, got healthcare. That is what we did. That was then. Today, in this time when I hear my colleagues who sit over here--I don't want to make this partisan, but it has become that because it is President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Senator McConnell who say no to this.…”