Jan Schakowsky Quotations

As a Jew I cannot sit idle while genocidal atrocities continue to unfold in Darfur, Sudan.

There is a lot that happens around the world we cannot control. We cannot stop earthquakes, we cannot prevent droughts, and we cannot prevent all conflict, but when we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

I was proud to witness American Jewish organizations found the Save Darfur Coalition in June 2004 to mobilize a coordinated interfaith response to the ongoing humanitarian disaster.

Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room.

Each and every day health centers provide high-quality primary and preventive care to our constituents.

Simply raising fuel economy standards for passenger cars and light trucks to 33 miles per gallon would eliminate our oil imports from the Persian Gulf.

Since the birth of our Nation, no other right has been more important than having the ability to vote. Unfortunately, as history has shown, the denial of this right to minorities is a scar on our system of democracy.

As a first generation Jewish American, I have witnessed firsthand Jewish immigrants who have come to this Nation in order to create a better life for themselves, their families, and future generations.

Plan Colombia was supposed to reduce Colombia's cultivation and distribution of drugs by 50 percent, but 6 years and $4.7 billion later, the drug control results are meager at best.

We need a vibrant Medicaid program and strategies to expand affordable access to health care for all, especially for the specialty care services that community health centers do not provide.

Like other important immigrant communities, the Jewish experience in the United States represents the ideal of freedom and the promise and opportunity of America.

The House Republican leadership has simply run out of ideas.

Three years into the war, tens of thousands of American troops remain targets of a growing Iraqi insurgency.

And we've also had now the speaker of the Parliament in Iraq using blatantly anti-Semitic remarks, saying the Jews and sons of Jews are the problem of all the violence that's in Iraq.

In Illinois, community, migrant, homeless and public housing health centers operate 268 primary care sites and serve close to 1 million patients every year.

Through educational programming, Jewish American History Month will help raise the awareness of a people, their history and contributions. It will help combat anti-Semitism, a phenomenon that is on the rise and that unfortunately still exists in our Nation.

Well, I was a very strong opponent of the war, in fact, one of those who went door to door to my colleagues and thus achieved 60 percent of the Democrats voting no against this war.

As grateful as we are for all the work the community health centers do, it is also important that we recognize that they cannot solve the health care crisis facing our Nation by themselves.

Handcuffing the ability of states and localities to develop clean fuels in the cheapest possible way, using local resources, is not sound or sensible policy.

Rather than proposing a forward-looking energy initiative, House Republicans continue to push Big Oil's tired old ideas, ideas that will do absolutely nothing to lower gas prices for the American consumer.

From what I do know, outsourcing in the Andean region is a way to avoid congressional oversight and public scrutiny. The use of private military contractors risks drawing the U.S. into regional conflicts and civil war. It's clear to me this practice must stop.

Microbicides could well be the first HIV prevention method that allows women to fight HIV-infection on their own. Even a partially effective microbicide could stop the infections of 2.5 million women over three years. This bi-partisan bill may be able to save a generation of women by developing this promising new preventive option,

Well we want to know what the speculation is that is contributing to this, if there's price gouging going on, ... We want to know from state and federal agencies what kind of help is available, if there are tax credits that people should be applying for right now and most of all we want to get to the bottom of why we are seeing these exorbitant rises in natural gas prices.

Because the Bush Administration will set no timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, both chambers of Congress acted to make sure our troops will not be left in Iraq indefinitely.

When we know where the hungry, the homeless and the sick exist, then we can help.

20,000 jobs is really not that many jobs.

I believe.....this is my final word......I believe that I'm supporting the Constitution of the United States which does not give the right for any individual to own a handgun....

It would be one thing if we could say the system works [in Illinois], and that individuals followed procedures and were found innocent, but in fact in all the cases it was really a fluke ... We find persistent wrongdoing on the part of law enforcement. It's really sheer luck that those convicted of these [capital] crimes were exonerated in the end.

Why did we not know that heads of state were being eavesdropped on, spied on? We are the intelligence committee and we didn't know that.

Another discovery that the report made was that the private insurers have done almost nothing to protect seniors from rising drug prices.

Why do we have to hire private contractors to do our work in Andean countries?

The United States itself is becoming isolated ... I think we need to be helping to strengthen the United Nations.

In my heart, I know that these mistakes do not define or diminish this good man, or the good work that he has done over the last 40 years or that he will do in the future,

I'm concerned about e-mails being blocked from advocacy groups, of all sides. I'm concerned about start-ups that may be shut down.

If you look at the U.S. government data, our own data, there is as much coca today in Colombia and as much cocaine in the United States as there was 6 years ago.

Because the Bush Administration will set no timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, both chambers of Congress acted to make sure our troops will not be left in Iraq indefinitely.

Because of a lack of fossil fuel resources within its borders, Israel has been forced to innovate to maintain a sustainable energy policy.

The Health Centers Renewal Act is important both in recognizing the successes of health centers and showing our support for their continued work.

This mistake is just indicative of the incredible confusion surrounding this program,

all of our soldiers still don't have up-armored Humvees.