Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to talk about the absolute necessity to pass this unemployment compensation bill. We should do it because it is the morally right thing to do, it is the economically right thing to do. We have listened to our Republican friends, and even though they always said in the past: Do not worry about paying for it-- they passed it almost five times under George Bush without paying for it--now all of a sudden they say: Pay for it. We do pay for it in this bill. So I do not know what it is they exactly want. They claim they are empathetic to people unemployed, the long-term unemployed, and we know that rate is very high--long-term unemployment--even though we have seen in the last, I guess, how many months, 8 million jobs--in about 46 months--but not everybody is fortunate to get those jobs. Clearly, we came out of the worst recession since the Great Depression, brought about by Wall Street. It happened under George W. Bush. We were bleeding jobs--bleeding jobs-- 700,000, 800,000 jobs a month. It was frightening. The GDP was contracting. President Obama turned it around. I predict he will go down in history as one of the great Presidents because we were almost flat on our backs, and yet he acted. Luckily, we had a few Republicans who helped us pass that stimulus, which in my State made a huge difference and all over the country. It got us on our feet. We have made reforms that are very important.…”