Angie Craig: “I come to the floor not to point fingers or make accusations about the tragedy that occurred in Iraq and continues to…”

“I come to the floor not to point fingers or make accusations about the tragedy that occurred in Iraq and continues to unfold. So while we are focused on international affairs and what may or may not have gone on in the Abu Ghraib prison, what I am going to talk about for a moment is what the average American, taxpaying, consuming, voting public, has experienced this past weekend. They went to the service station in their local community and filled up their gas tank with the highest priced gas in the history of this country. They paid anywhere from $1.84 to over $2.50 a gallon, depending on where one lives. When that credit card or that cash was handed out, that American consumer had paid more for gas at that moment on that day than ever in the history of this country. Yet this Senate, embroiled in Presidential politics at this very moment, fails to deal with this issue. I am amazed that last month the American economy struggled along and created nearly 300,000 new jobs, and we may well end up the quarter with one of the strongest growth periods in the American economy than we have had in a decade, and yet in all of those struggles, the American economy is spending more for energy than ever in the history of this country.”