Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank the Senator from South Dakota for organizing the colloquy and I also thank the good Senator from Nebraska for joining us as well. I appreciate working with them on this project, which is not only vital to our State but to our country. As the Senator from South Dakota said, this project is critically important to our country for a number of reasons. First, it will create tens of thousands of jobs. There will be a $7 billion investment, not one penny of which will be Federal Government spending but all private sector investment. The Perryman Group projected, when they did a study on the job creation, that it would create 20,000 construction jobs right away; it would create upward of 100,000 spinoff jobs as they expand refineries and with the other economic activity that is created. Some might dispute those job numbers, but any way we look at it, tens of thousands of jobs will be created by the private sector, which is why it has strong union support at a time when we have 13-plus million people out of work and we need the jobs. As the Senator from South Dakota said, it will generate hundreds of millions in tax revenues from a growing economy, from more economic activity. The last I checked, it is pretty important at the local, State, and Federal levels to have those revenues coming in. In addition, it will reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East.…”