Chris Murphy: “On the heels of introducing some of our colleagues and members of the administration to a gas pump, and I think you are…”

“On the heels of introducing some of our colleagues and members of the administration to a gas pump, and I think you are right, it is hard to understand how people can be so indifferent to the rising costs. Maybe they haven't seen a gas pump I want to introduce them to something else. This is a wallet. If you are an oil company executive, your wallet is busting at the seams. So your wallet is going to look different. This is a thin wallet. This is what the American people, working-class individuals throughout this country are dealing with. They are dealing with wages that have been pretty much flat for the last 5 years. Oil company profits over the last 5 years have gone from $6.5 billion in 2002 to $30.2 billion in 2007. I want to make sure that while we are introducing some of our colleagues and some people in the administration to a gas pump, let's also introduce them to the thin wallet. If the average worker's income doubled from 2001 to 2007, I would say no problem, you can handle gas prices that doubled over that time. But the fact is that wages for average Americans have remained flat. Why? Because we have set up an economy that is designed to fail for regular, working-class individuals in this country, the folks that we represent, the people working in small businesses, who are living from paycheck to paycheck and can't take these increases at the pump.”