Political Quotes

“Madam President, now that the government is up and running again, we need to look ahead at what our legislative priorities should be. I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself. My priorities are threefold. First, we need to expedite disaster relief. In December, the House passed an $81 billion disaster relief bill designed to address the natural disasters caused by Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey, as well as the wildfires out West. That has been sitting in the Senate since December. We need to act and act with dispatch. Everybody remembers Hurricane Harvey--we certainly do in Texas--which pummeled us last August. It was last August; this is February. Most of the media attention in the months since has focused on the city of Houston, which quite literally was torn apart. This was the most intense rain event in American history--more than 50 inches of rain fell in 5 days. Other areas beyond Houston fared worse--I am thinking of cities like Rockport and Port Author on the Texas coast. I am thinking of cities like Victoria and Beaumont. More than 28,000 square miles were flooded. Crops rotted, livestock died, and almost 6 months later people are still piecing together their lives. In addition to Hurricane Harvey, as I said, there was Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, and there were the wildfires that burned across California that later resulted in mudslides after the rains fell.…”