Political Quotes

“I agree that this is, too, about the Brooke amendment, but it is about more than the Brooke amendment. It is about whether or not we are going to develop some sensible public policy that will allow people to become independent. My friends on the other side of the aisle claim to understand that we have a lot of policies in government that do not allow people to really pull themselves up by their bootstraps. When we look at public housing, we will find a lot of that. One of those policies is the policy that will take more from people when they go to work, which serves as a disincentive. Recognizing this, we are simply saying, and the chairman needs to understand this, because I do not think he is a dishonest man. I really believe that he is little bit confused about this. When we say that we want to make sure that we are not taking away more than 30 percent, we are doing this so that we can create incentives for people to go to work and earn more money without their rents being raised to 40 and 50 percent. It is as simple as that. We here in this House, many of us make as much money, take home as much money as these residents make in an entire year. We heard what the income is of these residents. We take that much money home a month. Let me say, taking that much money home a month, some Members on the other side of the aisle sleep in their offices at night and they get free rent. How dare we talk about taking away more money from the poorest of the poor.”