Political Quotes

“24 years ago, Ronald Reagan was running for President and he asked each of us as Americans a question: Are you better off than you were 4 years ago? It was the right question then, and it is the right question now. Are we better off than we were 4 years ago? This is a very important question. Unfortunately, for most middle-income Americans in 2004, the answer is clearly no. What has happened in the last 4 years while wages have been flat, gas prices, college tuition, health care costs have skyrocketed, millions of jobs have been lost, poverty is on the rise, the budget surplus has been squandered, the Social Security trust fund has been raided, State taxes have risen, household debt has gone way up, consumer confidence has dropped, and the stock market has gone down. We can look at a few of these areas with average weekly earnings flat at slightly over 1 percent; gas prices certainly in Michigan and around the country skyrocketing, going up and up; college tuition; family health care premiums--these are just three measures of what is happening to our families and what is commonly called the middle-class squeeze where families are not seeing their incomes go up, and yet all of the costs of providing opportunity for their children, of being able to meet the daily costs of living are going up and up.”