Sylvester Turner: “I would like to talk about a subject this evening that has been ignored, I think, for the entire Congress that we have…”

“I would like to talk about a subject this evening that has been ignored, I think, for the entire Congress that we have been in since the first of the year, an issue that many of us feel very strongly about, an issue that many of us campaigned on on both sides of the aisle, an issue that I think must be dealt with if we are going to have a budget that is honest and realistic, and that is dealing honestly with the problem of providing prescription drug coverage for our senior citizens. Tomorrow, this House will vote on a budget that emerges from a conference committee. The details of that budget at this hour, at this late hour, are still very murky, but one thing is clear: a promise that we all made to our senior citizens this past fall, a promise of affordable prescription drugs, is being shoe-horned into this budget as an afterthought. There are many of us who believe very strongly that prescription drug coverage under Medicare for our senior citizens should be our highest priority.”