Political Quotes

“I would be stunned to think that any party or any President would do that. Infrastructure has been the bread and butter, and it has been one of the most bipartisan things that we have. When you talk about the need to expand our economy, expand the gross domestic product, one of the sure-fire ways to do that is through infrastructure projects. Not just building roads, but we need water treatment plants, our new energy economy, we have bio technology, and a number of other ways. But I hail from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is still very reliant on the manufacturing industry. But I am wondering if my colleagues would be surprised to know that healthcare is one-sixth of our economy, and that if we were to repeal the Affordable Care Act and then slash the growth of Medicaid by one-third over the next decade, that there will literally be millions of jobs that are lost? I mean, everybody depends on the healthcare system, whether you are the brain surgeon or you are the guy that is mopping up the ICU; whether you are the person who is dispensing pharmaceuticals at CVS or whether you are the receptionist at the community health center. And by destroying the Affordable Care Act, we are going to cost shift a lot to our States. Just over the next decade, it is $68 billion of unfunded mandates shifted to the States so that they won't be able to fund things. And I just want to point something out before I finish. There are a lot of people who think that this just doesn't matter to me.…”