Political Quotes

“I rise today to join my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Heinrich, in introducing the Two-Generation Economic Empowerment Act. Our bipartisan bill would support an innovative approach to fighting poverty, one that focuses on addressing the needs of children and their parents or other primary caregiver-- two-generations together--in order to help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. Far too many American families are living below the poverty line, and the prolonged public health and economic crisis has exacerbated this problem. In 2020, when COVID-19 shut down our communities and economy, we unfortunately saw the first increase in poverty after 5 consecutive years of decline. Nearly 38 million people, or about 1 in 10 Americans, lived below the poverty line in 2020. Sadly, this includes nearly 11 million children, 35,000 of whom live in Maine. Despite recent progress, Maine's child poverty rate is still higher than all of the other New England States except Rhode Island. While Federal programs have helped many of those living in poverty manage day-to-day hardships, they are falling short of breaking the cycle of poverty that has trapped too many families. As Tomas Philipson, an economist who served previously as the Acting Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal, ``you don't cut poverty by increasing reliance on government.…”