Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to introduce along with Senator Landrieu the Small Business Tax Extenders Act of 2012, that will provide targeted tax relief legislation to small businesses and extend the essential tax relief provisions that were included in the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, P.L. 111-240. When the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 was crafted, Senator Landrieu and I worked closely with Finance Committee Chair Baucus, then-Ranking Member Grassley, and now Ranking Member Hatch to ensure the critical small business tax provisions that reflected our shared priorities were included in that legislation. We sincerely appreciate all of their hard work on that legislation. As the former Chair and now Ranking Member of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and along with current Chair Landrieu, we are well aware of the urgent imperative of job creation in our country. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual unemployment rate for 2011 was 9 percent. For the past 3 years, unemployment has been no lower than 8.3 percent, so we are far from where we need to be in a recovery. About 45 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for at least 6 months--a level previously unseen in the 6 decades since World War II. At a time when 14 million Americans are still unemployed, and have been so for the longest period since record keeping began in 1948, our government should be taking every possible step to ease the burden on job creators.…”