Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “we need to ask ourselves, who built this country? Who built this country? It was built by people that got up every…”

“we need to ask ourselves, who built this country? Who built this country? It was built by people that got up every morning and made a sandwich and threw it in the pail, went to work, built a product, sent their kids to school, and lived the American dream. It was built by men and women, our veterans, who traveled the world in the cause of freedom, who took the red, white and blue, the symbol of freedom, brilliant with color, signifying the American way of life. It is now time for us to honor our senior citizens. It is time to honor our veterans. It is time to keep our promise and make sure that prescription drugs are available, accessible and affordable to the American public and particularly to our senior citizens. The cost of prescription drugs continues to escalate. I am pleased, as are many of my colleagues, to see that the White House has recognized that this is a very, very serious problem in the United States and we must do something about it. However, we need to move toward a real prescription drug benefit. Unspecified benefits that have been sent over by the White House are not adequate, and I think we need to tell the administration that placing the Medicare surplus in jeopardy to pay for these benefits is a complete nonstarter. In this time of alleged surpluses, certainly we can address issues that are important to our senior citizens, some of our most vulnerable citizens in this country.”