Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first of all, I want it understood that we take a backseat to nobody--nobody--when it comes to fighting this fraud. That is why I negotiated a bipartisan package in the last Congress dealing with a host of issues relating to addressing fraud and making improvements to unemployment insurance. I negotiated that bill with our ranking member, now the chairman of the Finance Committee. I am a little struck by what is going on here because my colleague, my friend from Oklahoma, was a cosponsor of that proposal. In other words, we did what the American people say they want, which is to have people find common ground on commonsense matters like fighting fraud. Our bipartisan proposal went after pandemic-era fraud by extending the statute of limits on prosecution. It would help to prevent fraud in the future. It would help States improve their unemployment insurance programs to get benefits out on time in the event of a big economic crash shall like we saw in 2020. It would make better use of data to prevent abuse. It would protect people who got overpayments entirely due to somebody else's mistake, who may not even know it to this day. I will tell you, I think it is odd at best but certainly disappointing that our Republican colleagues have decided to walk away from a really good bipartisan agreement. The proposal they brought to the floor is much smaller, is much narrower.…”