Political Quotes

“we talked a lot about the pandemic and all that it has brought. I would like to take just a few moments here, at the outset, before I ask for full consideration, to share with colleagues, very briefly, what we have faced in the State of Alaska with regard to our State's economy. We have probably taken a greater hit than any State in the country. We saw a 32-percent drop in revenue last year, 10 percent higher than any other State in the Nation. We are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, and that is good, but we are also facing the prospect of another devastating tourist season. Back home, right now, people are not talking about the season for 2021 coming up. The motto is ``Get through to `22.'' That is an awful way to be approaching our situation so they have asked for help. They realize that anything that we can do to try to salvage even a few weeks of the tourist season is going to be important to us. So Senator Sullivan and I have been working on behalf of hundreds of small businesses that rely on this essential income just so they can scrape by for another year. A lot of people don't think about cruise ships as being an essential activity during a pandemic but, let me tell you, in our State, where so much of our economy is based on tourism, it is an imperative. It is jobs; it is livelihoods; and it really is what allows our small communities to keep their doors open.…”