Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to address two issues which the Senate Finance Committee has spent a considerable amount of time on, and both of them are examples of how the Senate is leaving important work undone on its way out the door. I am going to begin by discussing the opioid bill. If ever there were an issue that ought to be unifying the Congress and bringing Democrats and Republicans together to surmount an important challenge, it ought to be opioid addiction in America. This is a crisis indiscriminate of geography and politics. The reality is that opioid addiction is ripping through our communities like wildfire. A recent editorial in one of my home State newspapers captured the extreme urgency of the opioid struggle, the addiction, with this statement: ``Opioids are winning.'' After months of work, the Senate and House have come up with an opioid bill. I can give my assessment in a sentence: It is a half- measure. The job is far from complete, and certainly nobody ought to be taking victory laps. The reality is that this opioid bill leaves many opportunities to fight and successfully win the battle against opioid addiction on the negotiating table. A landmark study dealing with opioids came out a few months ago and found that 80 percent of those who were addicted to painkillers or heroin weren't getting treatment. I want everybody to understand that under this bill, those waiting lines are not going to get much shorter.…”