Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for his comments. First of all, let me say that the gentleman knows full well that the President's jobs bill does not include revenues. The President suggested in the short term--and we ought not to raise revenues, as a matter of fact. In the short term, what we need to do is put more money back into people's pockets. The jobs bill, he did suggest ways to pay for that. And he suggested, as did Bowles-Simpson and Rivlin-Domenici, that that be paid for in the coming years so we do not dampen down the economy at the same time we are trying to stimulate the economy. The gentleman says that the bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, didn't work, and his comment was that the economy is in bad shape. Yes, the economy is in bad shape. It started being in bad shape in 2007, as the gentleman knows, when we went into the deepest recession he and I have experienced in our lifetime. And it remained in place, and the year that this President took office, we lost 786,000 jobs that month. After we passed the Recovery Act, as the gentleman knows, I'm sure, we created 2 million jobs over the last 24 months. The fact of the matter is it worked. Unfortunately, almost no economist understood the depth to which the recession had taken us. The gentleman didn't support the Recovery Act--I understand that--nor did his party. Perhaps those 2 million jobs would not have been created.…”