Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Neguse. I cannot overstate what an excellent partner the gentleman has been to work with and to fight for managing our forests and for our firefighters. Madam Speaker, we feel that appreciation for our first responders in our hearts, but that is just not enough. We need to find that in our appropriations as well. As my colleague, Mr. Neguse, just pointed out, the pay isn't high enough. These are high-risk jobs. We have turned them into year-round jobs for forest management. That is helpful. We have gotten pensions and Federal benefits. That is helpful. Yet think about what they do. Think about what their families go through. Think about housing. How are they supposed to find housing when they don't know where the next fire is going to be and when they don't have a salary to support themselves. There is a way to combine all of these efforts of higher pay, more recognition, and better benefits. Frankly, we should have a path to allow firefighters to buy into Medicare early, and I have cosponsored this. We can't expect people to fight fires until they are 65 years old. It just doesn't make sense. Just like we did for veterans, we also need to have some presumption that illnesses later in life likely came from inhalation of smoke. I also mention that there is a real need to sort of complete the cycle.…”