Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, it has now been more than 4 months since Congress let emergency unemployment insurance expire. In that time, more than 2.8 million job seekers, including 200,000 veterans, have lost the ability to provide for their families. Another 72,000 Americans are losing critical unemployment benefits every week. Let's be clear: these are people actively looking for work who lost their jobs through no fault of their own. Both are requirements for receiving unemployment insurance. But by failing to extend emergency insurance, we are creating a new disaster on top of the hardships already facing millions of American families, and we are damaging our economy. During just the first week that emergency unemployment insurance expired, our economy took a $400 million hit. Failure to extend that insurance could cost us 240,000 jobs this year due to lost buying power, exacerbating the difficulty for current job seekers and adding more to their ranks. Mr. Speaker, this is not smart policy. It is coldhearted and shortsighted, and I urge my colleagues to join me in demanding a vote to extend emergency unemployment insurance today. ____________________”