Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to continue with our 50 floor speeches marking the 50th anniversary of the war on poverty. Now, yesterday, we were joined by President Lyndon Baines Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson's eldest daughter, Lynda Johnson Robb, to mark the 50th anniversary of her father's State of the Union speech in which he declared an unconditional war on poverty. She reminded us that this was a bipartisan and bicameral effort led by the White House. Now, I have shared my own story, reluctantly, in the past of the time in my life when I depended on our vital social safety net programs during some very difficult times; but my testimony is only one of millions of other Americans. Many of you may be familiar with the Campaign to Cut Poverty in Half in Ten Years, a project of the Center for American Progress, the Coalition on Human Needs, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Now, they are doing phenomenal work gathering American stories of those who are living in poverty and have been lifted out of poverty, including our own Congressman Pocan's constituent, Amy Treptow's story. Amy is here today, and I look forward to hearing Congressman Pocan read her story later on this House floor. Her story, though, is a true representation of the legacy of the war on poverty and the promise of the American Dream fulfilled. Her story is not unlike one of my constituents in Oakland who visited my office here in D.C. last month.…”