Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, this legislation represents an irresponsible overreach and does not contain the protections necessary to safeguard valuable taxpayer dollars from abuse, waste, and fraud. Ken Feinberg, Special Master of the original 9/11 Fund, testified twice before the Judiciary Committee on this legislation. Both times Mr. Feinberg advocated reenacting the 9/11 fund, but doing so on a much more limited basis than is done in this legislation. Why are we ignoring his advice? Mr. Feinberg stated that if the fund is reenacted, it should be for ``a window of 5 years,'' not 21, and that it should be done with ``the understanding that there would be no changes in the rules and regulations governing the original fund and that the new law would simply be a `one line' reaffirmation of the original 9/11 fund.'' Mr. Feinberg warned that ``any attempt to modify the statutory provisions and accompanying regulations of the original fund will undercut political consensus.'' Unfortunately, Mr. Feinberg's sound advice was ignored there, too. Instead, we are considering a bill that creates a fund with an unnecessary 21-year long duration and that contains special protections for trial lawyers; unnecessarily extends the original fund's eligibility criteria; and does not include the protections necessary to safeguard the fund from abuse, waste, and fraud.…”