Political Quotes

“When talking on the floor, presenting legislation, it is always good to have a compass, so you can have some sense of where you are going and what it is all about. This is one I often bring to the floor when we talk about the issues of the day. This is from FDR--Franklin Delano Roosevelt--and he said the ``test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.'' It is a compass, and it is a way of judging progress or a lack of progress, and we seem to have more of the latter than the former. We have much to do if we are going to add to those who have little. In America, the American middle class, the working men and women, the families who raise their children try to buy a home, a car, maybe take a vacation--they have been struggling for the last 20 years. It has been tough. They have not seen income growth. The statistics are stark and clear. The middle class of America has stagnated, and, in fact, it has shrunk, as more and more Americans have fallen into the lower income class. There is something we can do about it, and we, Democrats, intend to do just that. We want to jump-start the middle class. We want to put in place policies that will grow the opportunities for the working families of America, for those men and women that get up in the morning, feed their children, get them off to school while they are getting off to a job. There are things we can do.…”