Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, well, as Yogi Berra said, This bill is like deja vu all over again--and not in a good way. The bill before us today is the ninth extension of unemployment benefits since mid-2008. Benefits recently stretched up to 99 weeks, or almost 2 years, in most States. With the exception of just one bill last November, every one of those extensions was not paid for. That's a total of $135 billion added to our $14 trillion debt. Meanwhile, our Democrat colleagues swore their policies would create jobs--but they haven't. Instead of paychecks, millions of Americans were left with only an unemployment check. In February 2009, the President signed the Democrats' trillion dollar stimulus plan. At that time, Democrats promised that the plan would create 3.7 million jobs and lower the unemployment rate to 7 percent by now. None of that happened. Instead, over 2 million more private sector jobs were lost, and unemployment spiked to 10 percent while the debt has grown by almost $3 trillion. A total of 48 out of 50 States have lost jobs since the Democrats' stimulus bill passed. Yet here we are again--extending unemployment benefits because the Democrats' trillion dollar stimulus failed to create the millions of jobs they promised it would. Even more sadly, instead of doing this responsibly, this bill will simply add another $12 billion to our current mountain of debt. We can do better than this. We certainly can do better than this.”