Robin Carnahan: “Thank you. I just want to say I am so proud to be one of the new Democrats in the House and be here with you all…”

“Thank you. I just want to say I am so proud to be one of the new Democrats in the House and be here with you all tonight. I was listening to you and thinking about our freshman class, and particularly the Democrats involved. Almost all of them came from prior experience in the State government, in the State legislatures, like Congresswoman Schwartz, and I know Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz was also in the State legislature, and Congressman Cleaver was Mayor in Kansas City, a lot of experience. And we all had to work with our State and local budgets and be fiscally responsible, the same way that many of our American families have to be with their household budgets. And the way that priorities have been set in this budget are so skewed from what the average people in this country need. And probably one of the best examples of that is the energy bill that we passed. And I know all of us voted against it here on the floor tonight. At a time when we provided $14 billion in tax breaks to the big oil companies, and weeks later, just weeks later, they announced the biggest profits in the history of the world. And now we see the prices at the pump, we continue to pay. Again, very, very misplaced priorities.”