Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we hope we can finish this very quickly. The votes are in. There are a number of technical things that could be done by those who oppose this legislation, but it would just waste a lot of the Senate's time, which we do not have a lot of, so I hope we can move through this very expeditiously. This is an important piece of legislation. It is the most significant thing we have done since the stimulus bill was passed to create jobs. It is estimated this will create from 500,000 to 700,000 jobs. It will give community banks the ability now to compete with the big banks and loan money to small businesses. As I said this morning, big banks are doing great. The stock market jumped up yesterday because they looked at the financials of the big banks and they are doing terrific. Big business is doing just fine. But in this recession we have the jobs that have been lost in the small business sector. Eighty percent of the jobs lost are from small businesses. This legislation will allow community banks to start loaning money. As you drive across the country, you see these strip malls with ``For Lease'' signs up. That will be ending in the near future. People will be able to borrow money to keep inventory for these little businesses that create thousands and thousands of jobs. It will allow Karen Mills at the SBA, who has begged us for this legislation, to have the SBA part of stimulating our economy. There are programs there that are under-resourced.…”