Political Quotes

“This legislation gives the same number of weeks of benefits for unemployment compensation as was given under President Bush, Sr., in the early 1990s. Only Oregon and Washington, the States with the highest unemployment in the Nation, will get a little bit more, and that is because of an extension of Congress passed in March. The March bill provided up to 65 weeks of benefits for those two States. Our bill only provides up to 7 more. This is extremely important. We have people out of work. That might not sound like much to somebody who has a job, but to someone who does not have a job, it is everything. We have 2 million more Americans unemployed than we had 18 months ago. We have economic problems that have been kind of covered up. We have a situation where there is $4.5 trillion lost in the stock market. If someone was going to retire with their 401(k) or their IRA, they would have to work up to 5 years more, having lost 30 to 35 percent of the value of their retirement. We need to extend unemployment compensation. We did it before under President Bush senior. There was an emergency then.”