Political Quotes

“I wish to thank Senator Blunt from the great State of Missouri for his leadership on this issue. He chairs the subcommittee that is very pivotal--the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services--and has moved forward so aggressively to up the funding in this area. We have the pedal to the metal now. As he said, when we are moving and coming to a final spending bill, this has to be a top priority for us. It is absolutely critical. I am really pleased to be on the subcommittee, but I want to thank him for-- I know he works diligently with NIH, which holds big promise. We are always looking for solutions. Can we treat ourselves out of this? Can we law enforce ourselves out of this? Can we prevent ourselves out of this? I think we can do all of those. We have to have a component of research that looks at the alternatives to pain medications and pain management. The current bill we have looked at is $816 million for programs to combat opioid abuse issues, and that is a 440-percent increase from the previous year. I am going to go through this. It might sound a little mundane and detail-oriented, but people say: That is great to ``up'' the amount of money that you are spending, but where are you really spending this money? The Senator from Missouri, Mr. Blunt, mentioned that it has to be done locally, and there is a lot of emphasis on where these dollars are going.…”