Political Quotes

“I come to the floor today to respond to some arguments made in a recent opinion article by the chairman and ranking member of the Senate and House Budget Committees, respectively. It is entitled ``GOP Budget Attacks Misguided.'' The crux of the piece is that President Obama has made great progress in improving the economic outlook, and it would improve even more if only Republicans would embrace his policies. The first set of claims I want to respond to relates to the strength of the economic recovery. The authors write that ``we've come a long way'' since the peak of the recession thanks to ``actions taken by the Obama administration'' and have had ``23 consecutive months of private- sector job growth.'' To start, I don't think the 12.8 million unemployed Americans would agree we have come a long way. Indeed, it has been 2\1/2\ years since the recession technically ended, and we are still experiencing the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Growth is anemic, and there are 700,000 fewer employed Americans today than when President Obama took office. Although it has been 3 years since passage of the stimulus bill, unemployment has been above 8 percent for the last 35 months. Remember, this legislation was sold as a way to keep unemployment below 8 percent. These are some of the signs that ``actions taken by the administration'' are not working to get Americans back to work or improving the economy.…”