Political Quotes

“Let me say at the outset it is my great honor to cochair with the Senator from Arkansas this effort relative to hunger, hunger awareness. It has brought us together in terms of offering resolutions, in terms of offering legislation, filling grocery bags. We have done a lot of things together in this effort. I am fortunate to work with Senator Lincoln. She comes to this issue driven by her faith and her family. They are linked together in her speech today and in her life. There is hardly a decision she makes--I know from having worked with her for so many years--that is not driven by her understanding of the impact of life on her family and what it means to so many other families. As we have met in a variety of places, filling boxes and bags with groceries, we both had cause to reflect on what leads to hunger in a prosperous Nation. How does a country so rich as America end up with hungry people? How can this be? Yet we know, as she knows, it turns out to be a lot of people are working hard to avoid hunger. It can be a mother with a low-wage, minimum wage job, a mother who has been stuck in a minimum wage that this Congress has refused to increase for 9 straight years. Think about that: $5.15 an hour for 9 years. This poor mother, trying to keep her family together, put her kids in a babysitter's hands or daycare, and then put food on the table finds that many times one job, sometimes two jobs are not enough, and she ends up at that food pantry.…”