Political Quotes

“Today, I ask for my colleagues' support for my amendment to cut $28 million from this bill and contribute that money to paying down our deficit. My amendment takes the funds from the allocation to minority AIDS prevention. The targeted $28 million is actually a small fraction of what Americans pay in research and prevention of AIDS. According to HIV.gov, we spent $28 billion--1,000 times this targeted amount--on the domestic response to HIV/AIDS this year. The government approach to tackling HIV/AIDS encompasses five agencies and countless offices within those agencies. Our Housing and Urban Development Department, our Justice Department, our Defense Department, all of them spent money to combat AIDS last year. In fact, there are at least a dozen programs focused on AIDS, and the more you look into it, the more it represents the typical, bloated, ineffective government spending. My amendment targets, again, one-tenth of a percent of those funds that are racially focused because, once again, we are dividing people and our research based on race, which does nothing to help all Americans. Race can be a contributing factor in health outcomes, but that doesn't mean it needs special funding. If a disease disproportionately impacts a certain group, that will come out in the research and that group will benefit more from the program. The funds themselves should not be allocated based on race but allocated based on need.…”