Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, in 11 years here I have never seen anything like this. The drug industry and its allies have spent the past few weeks unloading a lobbying blitzkrieg on Members of Congress. They have run disingenuous ads likening America's closest allies to rogue states. They have targeted individual House Members, accusing them of putting their constituents' lives at risk. They have manufactured claims that importation would encourage abortion. These are the actions of a lobby that knows it loses on the merits and desperately wants to change the subject. Nothing new here. For years the drug industry has been spending a lot of time and a lot of money trying to change the subject. During the past decade, the drug industry spent a half billion dollars to tell public officials and the American people what they should believe and how they should think. They have spent $100 million to assist President Bush and the Republican leaders in this House. These are the actions of a lobby that wants desperately to talk about anything but its unsupportable and unjustifiable prices.”