Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The economic elites who are the patrons of many of my friends across the aisle believe in trickle-down economics, which George Herbert Walker Bush termed to be ``voodoo economics.'' My friends believe that when you put a quarter in the pocket of a rich man, there is a hole in that pocket and the quarter trickles down and falls out into nickles and dimes and is distributed to the waiting working class people of the country. They believe that is how the economy works: give the rich the money, let them operate in an unregulated environment, and then somehow, magically, the economy trickles down to those waiting at the bottom of the scale waiting for some kind of a handout. That is not how our economy works. It works from the ground up. It works with people going to work, making a decent wage, delivering services for a period of time--8 hours a day, that is a regulation; 40 hours a week, that is a regulation. We didn't used to have those during times when people were predominantly poor, and the Nation was poor as a result; but due to these regulations like the minimum wage, the 40-hour workweek, the health and safety regulations on the job, we were able to build a middle class in this country that sustained us up until the time when Ronald Reagan won the Presidency and established the current climate of trickle-down economics.…”