Political Quotes

“Mr. President, the letter I have submitted was written to bring CARA to the attention of both the CJS and the Labor- HHS subcommittees. But those subcommittees, when they got this letter, had no idea the bulk of this would move from the Judiciary Committee to the HELP Committee. Back then, CARA was mostly funded through another subcommittee--CJS. Back then, CARA had not even been scheduled for its hearing in Judiciary. So why was the funding for the opioid crisis put in and, indeed, increased by the appropriators of the HELP accounts? Obviously, because 47,000 people died last year--in 2014, the last year we have on record--of opioid overdose deaths. This is a national crisis. They were paying attention to it. They were putting resources in, but not resources to implement the bill that we are about to vote on in the next few days. Indeed, as we speak, SAMSHA, the relevant agency, is gearing up its grant applications to go forward and solicit bids for all the money the appropriators approved and that was dialed up in the omnibus. And SAMSHA is proceeding under the pre-CARA laws. SAMSHA intends to spend every dollar of the appropriated funds, CARA or no CARA. That means if this CARA bill passes, every dollar that goes this year to fund a CARA program will take away funds from that pre-CARA grant array that SAMSHA is preparing right now. In that case, we will necessarily be robbing Peter to pay Paul. You cannot count the same funding twice, and there is no new money for CARA.…”