Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy in permitting me to speak on this, and I am pleased to follow my friend from California (Mr. Royce). This is troubling for me, his reference here to 38 extensions without reform. I have been working on this for 20 years. This is the 41st time, and we had one back in 2004 with my friend, Doug Bereuter, where we had some small steps, but they were anticipatory of being able to make greater reforms. I am vexed that we continue to move forward and dodge some hard facts. We are subsidizing too much for people who grow complacent. I am concerned about affordability. There are things we can do to deal with affordability, but that doesn't mean to have massive subsidization for people who don't need it and, in fact, encourage people to be in harm's way and, in fact, after they are flooded out, to go back, putting them in harm's way again. There are simple, commonsense steps we can take. There were things that Mr. Royce and I had that are sort of the lowest common denominator. I am deeply troubled that we are going to do this again without dealing with the problems. I just want to say that it is not just financial hardship and it is not just wasting of money. Our failure to reform the Flood Insurance Program puts people at risk. Every one of these massive events shows that people will go back, trying to deal with a family member; they are dealing with their business, or they are dealing with a pet.…”