Rick Allen: “The median wage in this country now has dipped down slightly in these last 4 years. And if we look at health care, a…”

“The median wage in this country now has dipped down slightly in these last 4 years. And if we look at health care, a third component of whether or not we are in a healthy economy or not, there are 5 million more Americans who do not have health insurance today. We are at 45 million instead of the 40 million uninsured when George Bush took office. So there has been deterioration across the board. And the worst is yet to come, because the Office of Management and Budget has a memorandum out there and that makes it very clear that in the 2006 budget, which is coming right down in front of us, there are going to be deep cuts in many government services, including cuts to education, veterans' health care, environmental protection, job training and child care. The last thing that I personally wanted to say about this is that I have been thinking a lot about my father's generation. My parents are both gone now, but they went through the depression and the Second World War, and a lot of people did not come through the Second World War. The guiding principle of my parents and their whole generation, I believe, was to make sure their children and grandchildren had more opportunity than they did.”