On the recordOctober 19, 2011
I will in 1 second--anything remotely approaching our claim to be a land of opportunity when 9 out of 100 children born in poverty can graduate with a college degree, when 91 out of 100 children who are unfortunate enough to be born poor are constrained to the margin of our democracy, the margin of our economy. I will stop here. But to be clear about it, there are 100 seats in the Senate. When I walk into this room, I think about what if the 100 people who were here were children living in poverty in the United States. Here is how many would have a college degree. That chair. That chair. That chair. These four chairs and this one. That is it. The rest of this Chamber would be occupied by people who did not have the benefit of a college degree.
