Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I rise today to highlight the need to immediately extend unemployment benefits and to make permanent the middle class tax cuts. To the 14,600 Marylanders and 2 million Americans across the country who are facing the loss of their unemployment benefits, this Member of Congress and Members on this side of the aisle understand who you are and understand what you're facing. I've stood in an unemployment line. I wasn't lazy, I wasn't not looking for a job, but I needed unemployment benefits. I've stood in a food pantry, and it's humiliating, the entire experience. And so the idea that we are going to allow Americans, hardworking American families who have earned their benefits, to go home at Thanksgiving and not know whether they're going to put a turkey on the table to feed their families, we should be ashamed if we allow that to happen. I know that I am committed, my colleagues are committed, to make sure that the American public understands that you need your unemployment benefits and that you want to work, and that you have worked before and that you want to work again. And so I would say to all of those out there who would choose to not allow Americans to put food on their tables to ask themselves who we are as a country. ____________________”