Paul Coverdell: “I am convinced if Thomas Jefferson, or any of our august Founders were here today, they would be absolutely aghast to…”

“I am convinced if Thomas Jefferson, or any of our august Founders were here today, they would be absolutely aghast to find that this Nation, that the workers--and it is better to characterize workers as working families today, because virtually 80 percent of what has happened in the workplace has been about working families. It is no longer a breadwinner with the family at home; it is the whole family in the workplace. Not only are both spouses in the workplace, often children of the spouses are in the workplace. We did not have a celebration but we had a revelation last week when we were here on the floor on May 8--May 8--to acknowledge that that would be the first day that these working families would have the right to keep their paychecks. Every day prior to that--May 7, 6, 5, 4, all the way back to January 1--their paychecks belonged to the Government. It is almost unfathomable that we would have come to the point that a family would work from January 1 to May 7 and forfeit all of those wages to the Government before they had the first dime for themselves to take care of those very special needs that we charge the American family to do--house, educate, transport, feed, health, prepare the Nation for the future, to get America up the next day and to school and to work, to get them home, to get ready for the next week, the next month, the next generation. January 1 to May 7 before they get to keep their first check--that is hard to fathom.”