Political Quotes

“in Illinois we have unemployment now of 6.7 percent; 17,000 workers have lost their job in the last 6 months; 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last 2 years; and 2 million of those jobs are manufacturing jobs. One gentleman brought up the statistics and said that the statistics, and we are talking about the 1 million people who are left out, they were put out by the Center for Budget Priorities. In fact, the Department of Labor also recognized that 1 million people would not be covered by this unemployment insurance. The fact is, I believe people on both sides are going to support this because people on both sides believe that people are hurt and need support. But this is an itsy-bitsy unemployment insurance program, when we can cover another 1 million people. That is how some people refer to the $350 billion tax cut. In my view, this is an itsy-bitsy unemployment tax cut. We can do more because we are able to do more. We should not make that choice, that if you are unemployed you cannot get unemployment insurance. I believe that is the value we want to put in place. Although a number of us will support this, we can do better than the economic plan envisioned here.”