Political Quotes

“I rise to say how pleased I am on behalf of the people of California that we have made such progress on raising the minimum wage tonight and passing a long overdue health care bill. The things that we did tonight are going to ripple throughout this country. There has been much discussion of the trickle-down effect. People who work hard at the bottom end of the economic ladder deserve dignity and an income to support their families. Today is a good day for them. It is a good day for all of us. I also want to pay tribute to the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy. I had the privilege and honor of standing with him at numerous press conferences and briefings. We brought small business people out who said that they paid their people more than the minimum wage, and they were proud of it. They had loyal and hard-working employees. At another, we had working women tell us that the difference to them between the hourly wage they are getting and the wage they will get after this 90-cent-an-hour increase meant that they could pay for some long overdue doctor bills. So we have done something very fine here today. And health care--two of the provisions of the Clinton health care bill were taken out of that bill and passed in the form of a Kassebaum-Kennedy bill. People can take their health insurance with them from job to job. It is a lifting of a burden and a worry.”