Political Quotes

“Thank you again, Congressman Tonko, for pulling us together this afternoon. I just want to make a couple of points. Echoing what Congressman Larson said, if you look at just what happened over the last couple of weeks in terms of the disaster that hit the Eastern Seaboard, and you can look over the last few months across this country and see those sorts of disastrous effects happening to people, nobody would question that the Federal Government has an important role to play in coming to the assistance of people that are in that dire situation. Whatever your larger philosophy is about whether government should be large or small and so forth, everyone agrees the government should be on the side of people that are facing such a desperate situation and should act quickly. So if we accept that proposition, we also ought to think about the 14 million people, John, that you referred to, who basically are facing an economic hurricane every single day. And it is the role, the appropriate role, the necessary role of the Federal Government taking those taxpayer dollars and saying, we're going to turn and help our fellow citizens in need, and we're going to do it quickly, and we're going to do it in a way that not only helps them, but is also good for the broader economy and will put people back to work. Let me just finish with this last thought.…”