Political Quotes

“this is an amendment to the economic stimulus bill, and it relates to unemployment compensation. There are many arguments that I will make about the justice and fairness of this amendment, but that is not where I am going to start. I want to start with the economics of this amendment. This is an economic stimulus bill. It is not designed first and foremost to be a bill for restoring justice to unemployment compensation, although I think this amendment achieves that. The first thing it is supposed to do is help the economy move forward. If there is a problem in America's economy today that is easily defined, it is the fact that we have an overcapacity and overproduction of goods and services and limited demand. As a result, businesses across America have said: People are not buying as much as they used to, so we are going to cut back on production. We are going to lay off workers. That has had a ripple effect in the wrong direction. It has created a recession, which has created unemployment, which has lessened business activity. First and foremost, whatever we do in an economic stimulus package should attack this problem. First and foremost, it should stimulate demand and spending for goods and services. And in stimulating that demand, I believe it will increase the demand for production, and it will increase employment in production industries and start this economy back on the road again.”