Political Quotes

“just a few minutes ago, Senators Lieberman, Collins, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and I gathered in the press gallery upstairs to unveil a proposed compromise that is designed to help ensure we have a viable, strong U.S. Postal Service in this country for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years and longer. There has been a lot of time spent in debate over jobs: How are we going to save jobs? How are we going to create jobs in this rough economy we are moving through? As it turns out, there are about 7 million jobs that flow from the Postal Service. There are only about 500,000 people who actually work for the Postal Service these days. There are roughly another 7 million who are associated with the Postal Service in one way or the other. If we do nothing, the Postal Service--which lost $10 billion last year, is on track to lose a couple hundred billion dollars over the next 10 years--will literally go out of business next year--not in 10 years, not in 5 years but next year. That is a consequence none of us can look forward to and we need to provide predictability and certainty and part of that is to make sure we have a Postal Service that meets the needs of our businesses and the interests of our citizens. The situation is dire, but it is not hopeless. This is one we can fix and the four of us believe this legislation will fix this problem not in 5 years, not in 10 years from now but literally provide the fix that is needed this year.…”