Political Quotes

“if I could, first of all, thank my colleague from Virginia, my dear friend Senator Kaine. I just want to touch on one thing before we have Senator Casey speak on behalf of all the coal miners he represents in the State of Pennsylvania. On the Black Lung Fund, a lot of people don't know, the House of Representatives basically, 2 years ago, passed a bill reducing the fund from $1.10 to 55 cents. I called over to my friends and colleagues in the House, and I said: You would think we don't need the money anymore because we have cured black lung--but it is just the contrary. We have more diseases and more younger people getting black lung, and I will tell you the reason why. When mining coal, you are cutting through a lot of rock, and you get silica coming out from that. We are cutting into more rock than ever before. We have even more younger miners contracting black lung. We need to fund more now than ever before, and this is not the time to cut it. That 55 cents a ton makes a difference between solvency or not, curing people or the Federal Government having to step in. The coal miners have been proud to pay their own way. They paid for their pension. They paid for their healthcare. They didn't take money home because when they negotiated, this is how much stayed in the fund. Basically, somebody received that money, the benefit, but not the people who worked for it.…”