Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, let me start off with some sobering news. I call it the body count. Last year, 2015, in the United States, there were 41,000 suicide deaths in this country. There were 45,000 deaths from drug overdoses. Many of those folks suffered from depression. There were an estimated 1,200 homicides by people who are seriously mentally ill. About half of all deadly police encounters occurred with someone who is mentally ill. There is an unknown number of mentally ill who died 25 years sooner because they tend to die of chronic illnesses. There is about one homeless person per day in Los Angeles who dies. We know about 200,000 homeless people in this country are mentally ill. It is a sad case in any numbers. But if you add those numbers up, even the most conservative version is that there were some 85,000 deaths last year related to mental illness--and it is probably much higher--and more have died from mental illness-related problems than the total United States combat deaths of the entire Korean War and Vietnam Wars combined. That is sobering, but it is worse. It is worse because we could prevent a large number of these mental illness problems. We could save many of those with mental illness from their early demise. We could save their families from suffering. But, unfortunately, the Federal Government is the problem. Let me lay out this evening in this Special Order some of the particular problems that we have.…”