Political Quotes

“I thank the senior Senator from Michigan for her words today but also, more importantly, for her advocacy for so many years, and maybe especially in the last year, on the Children's Health Insurance Program and all of the great work she has done. This is a program which has been bipartisan for a generation. I speak from the vantage point of Pennsylvania. It has been bipartisan in my home State for even longer than the Federal program. In Pennsylvania, the program was passed in 1992 and became law in 1993, and so for longer than the Federal program, which many people know started in 1997. It has personal connections to me. My father was the Governor who signed the legislation into law in 1993. Since that time, every Republican and Democratic Governor and, for the most part, the legislatures of both parties have supported it, which has been the case here. It is only lately that CHIP has become contentious. The tragic irony here--or if you wanted to use stronger language, I would use the word ``insult''--in this case, you had legislation to reauthorize--which is a fancy Washington word for ``do it again'' with maybe some changes--the legislation was reauthorized in the fall and was ready for passage on the Senate floor. The majority leader indicated that it had to get through committee, and it did. We had a unanimous vote in the Finance Committee to have children's health--to have that program be part of our law going forward. What happened?…”