Political Quotes

“I did want to follow up on the discussion this morning on the economy. A few minutes ago, I indicated that every economic indicator that should be going down is going up: job losses; health care costs; foreclosures; national debt; interest rate costs; Social Security trust fund raid. Every part of the economy we wish to be going up is going down: economic growth, down; business investment, down; the stock market, down; retirement accounts, down; consumer confidence; minimum wage. We have a very disturbing situation. I wish to speak for a moment about one piece of the economy that is so critical in the quality of life of American families and American businesses which are struggling to pay the costs. Let me speak to one piece of the economic record of the last 18 months, and that is that workers' payments for health insurance is soaring. We are seeing that the cost of insurance to cover a family has gone up 16 percent, and the cost of an individual has gone up 27 percent, over one-fourth increase in their costs. The costs are going up. Their savings are down, their investments are down, and at the same time, we are seeing the biggest part of the reason for that health care cost going up as a result of the cost of prescription drugs. We are seeing overall prescription drugs going up over three times the rate of inflation.”