Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for his comments. As he knows, we have an agenda to do just that. It is called Make It In America, to expand manufacturing, create the kinds of jobs where people can make good salaries, have good benefits, and have good security for the long term. There is no disagreement on that, Mr. Speaker. The only disagreement seems to be, while we are trying to get that done, whether or not we try to assure that those who have fallen through the cracks do not find themselves in dire circumstances because we have eliminated the safety net that we constructed. I would say to the gentleman, this is the longest time in history-- and we are going to hear a lot of information from members of the Ways and Means Committee--the longest time in history that we have had this level of long-term unemployment. One of the reasons for that is, obviously, the dislocations in the marketplace and that we experienced the deepest recession that anybody--maybe Ralph Hall is an exception-- that anybody in this body has experienced. {time} 1400 In other words, the last time we had as deep a recession as we had at the end of the last administration that carried over into this administration was the deep Depression, and you have to be 90 years or older to have really remembered and experienced that. So there is a lot of pain out there. All I am saying is we agree there is no disagreement. We want to get people to work. We want to take actions that give them the skills.…”