Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for his response, Mr. Speaker. But it seems to me that it begs the question. The question is, yes, we want to get people back to work. Everybody on this floor wants to get people back to work. I don't think there is any doubt about that. Hopefully we would be at full employment, however one defines that-- whether it is 3 percent, 4 percent unemployment, which would be transition employment or unemployment. But yes, we want to have everybody back to work. The issue that I ask about, Mr. Speaker, is that if we don't get everybody back to work--and we haven't gotten everybody back to work. There were 192,000 new jobs created this past month. That is good, but it is not good enough. And that is why we have a continuing 6.7 percent unemployment rate. Mr. Speaker, my question to the majority leader was to assume, for argument, that the letter to which he refers is accurate. I don't accept that premise. But accepting that premise for the minute, would the majority leader be amenable to, rather than to do as the Senate does, making it retrospective so that the 3.5 months that would have gone from December 29 of last year to today and paying that back, simply extending for 5 months while people continue to look for employment but have been unable to find it because there are three times as many people looking for jobs as there are jobs available--and we are adding 72,000 people on a weekly basis to the unemployed roles.…”