Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I would say very briefly that I appreciate the comments from the Senator from Illinois explaining his position. It seems to me that from where he started, he should actually be supporting the amendment, and then we should figure out what we need to do to push on the Department of Labor to actually modernize their systems. But I just want to say in public something that has been negotiated for the last 8 or 9 hours--and we haven't been able to get conversation partners, really, on that side of the aisle--which is that you are absolutely right that the Department of Labor says that there are massive system problems in the States. So given that we are entering a recession at this moment, we are going to have lots and lots of needy Americans, and the calls on the State departments for unemployment insurance benefits are substantial right now. So I would just say, taking you in good faith that you would like to upgrade these systems so that we could do this thing, which doesn't accidentally stimulate unemployment by disincentivizing work, I have been trying all afternoon to get people on that side of the aisle to say: Hey, maybe we can't get this solved by day one of the new unemployment insurance benefits, but by week 8 or 9, maybe we should have been able to get to a place where the Department of Labor had the resources to help these departments of unemployment insurance deal with this.…”