Political Quotes

“Economic development and jobs is what unites us in this body. That is what we all want. That is what everyone here is striving to achieve--jobs and opportunity for the people of this country. There are many factors that contribute to that, and we can discuss and debate all of them this year. I suspect that we will. There is infrastructure, tax policy, smart regulation, and regulatory reform. But the one about which there is very little dispute is education. The single greatest job creation and economic development act in the history of the United States was the GI bill, subsequent to World War II, which opened the doors of college and higher education, to millions of Americans and literally built the middle class in this country. Education is what it is all about and education is even more important now than it was then. There was a time in this country when you could graduate from high school and get a pretty good job in a mill, make good money, have two cars in the garage, and lead a successful life. That is much more difficult today. Even those jobs in those mills require more education. In my State of Maine we did a survey a few years ago that showed 70 percent of the jobs had people touching a computer every day. That is what takes an education, and to get an education takes access. I will share one rather chilling statistic in terms of the competitive nature of the 21st century. We are engaged in competition.…”