Political Quotes

“I want to speak on the floor today about something that is incredibly important to families all across Michigan and all across the country--what we have talked about in terms of the importance of having a middle class in this country. Folks who are working all their lives, who get a good wage, and who pay into a pension and expect it to be there. Those fundamentals are falling apart for far too many people. Specifically, I want to speak about what is happening regarding pensions and pension protections in this country. I think all of us would agree that a pension is a promise and it is earned. A pension is earned over a lifetime of hard work, and it is the foundation of retirement security for tens of millions of American workers who have a pension and for their families. There is no question that a number of pension funds in our country are suffering, due largely to factors that they cannot control, such as what happened with the Wall Street financial crisis, which took billions of dollars and wasn't the fault of any of the workers involved or of the businesses, for that matter, that found themselves going out of business because of what happened during that financial crisis. This took a huge toll on middle-class families. We have focused on homes and the loss of homes, which was a disaster. But a second disaster is now beginning to be felt, and that is the question of pensions and the loss of pension benefits.…”