Political Quotes

“I rise today, at this most consequential of times, and as a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, to speak to the issue of the economic stimulus we have begun to consider here in the U.S. Senate. We are deliberating on this legislation because the gravity of our economic circumstances is the most dire we have witnessed since the Great Depression, and in just three months, this recession will officially become the longest and quite possibly the deepest since the 1930s. We lost 2.6 million jobs last year, the most since 1945. The U.S. Department of Labor has reported the number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits has reached 4.8 million, an all-time high since record-keeping began in 1967--and that doesn't include the nearly 1.7 million getting benefits through an extension last summer. Mark Zandi--chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, who has advised both Senator McCain and President Obama--has stated, ``without stimulus, unemployment will rise well into the double digits by this time next year.'' And then we learned last Friday that the economy shrank at its fastest pace in nearly 27 years in the fourth quarter of 2008. Our gross national product dropped at a 3.8-percent annual rate, worst since 1982. So, indisputably, the grave nature of the current landscape dictates the urgency of passing a substantial and comprehensive economic stimulus package. I want to support a stimulus package. But I cannot support just any package.…”