Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Mikulski so much not only for yielding to me but for her extraordinary leadership in the Senate on so many issues of fairness and justice for women, for families, for children, and for our seniors. It is really a legendary record that she has amassed, and this is just one more example. I also thank President Obama for his leadership in calling attention to this important legislation, the Paycheck Fairness Act. If you were to stop someone on the street and in the simplest terms say: Do you think it is right to pay people differently for the same job? Do you think that is right--they have the same experience, the same education, the same qualifications--people would say: No, that is not right. Yet that is what has been happening to America's women, even though we have, since the 1960s, a very important law in place that is supposed to guarantee fair pay to everyone, including women. But women earn 77 cents for every $1 earned by a man. When you drill down to those numbers, you find out in a vast number of cases they are doing the same work as the man, making less. Of course, Lilly Ledbetter made a very important point about this and became quite famous with a Supreme Court case where she had been doing the same things as her male counterparts--working in a tire factory, being a manager, being skilled, being strong, and yet underpaid. When she discovered it, trying to seek justice, she was unable to do so.…”