Political Quotes

“Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I know the distinguished Senator from Ohio is going off to champion yet another cause for workers--the whole question of justice with pensions. I want to thank him for his eloquent remarks, as well as our colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, and my seatmate on the Finance Committee, Senator Stabenow. I will be making some remarks, and we may have another colleague or two come, and then Senator Stabenow on behalf of all of us will be making a motion with respect to these health programs. For my three colleagues on the Finance Committee, thank you for your commitment-- months and months of commitment around the proposition. As Senator Brown just said, this program should have become law a long, long time ago. It is heartbreaking to see these CHIP families put through the political ringer; there is no other way to describe it. They come up to us--the moms, the families--and they talk about how they are being told: Well, maybe this program isn't going to be around pretty soon. And they heard that at the end of the year there was going to be big slabs of tax relief for those at the top and some multinational corporations. What did these kids get? They got something called a patch. In effect, that says it all. They were given second-class treatment, and the powerful and the well-connected got first-class treatment. As my colleagues have said, you didn't hear much of a mention about the Children's Health Insurance Program back then.…”