Political Quotes

“Thank you. First, I'd like to extend my appreciation to my colleague, Mr. Garamendi from California, for laying out the case for economic mobility. I'm glad that we're beginning to have this discussion at the beginning of this second session of the 113th Congress because it's the discussion that the American people desperately need this Congress to focus on, and you touched on it. Are we providing enough for the people who have too little? Are we focused on those who are in the middle class and are striving to be part of the middle class? I'm from Nevada. Nevada is currently tied with Rhode Island for the highest unemployment in the Nation at 9 percent. This is not something that we're proud of. We like boasting about being the entertainment capital of the world and the fact that we have some of the most magnificent natural resources. Unfortunately, the prolonged recession has hit our State and the people of Nevada to our core, and it's because, in large part, our economy was a growth economy. For nearly 20 years, year over year, we had double-digit growth, and people were moving to the great State of Nevada to help us build and to grow. During the recession, that changed. So, now, thousands, over 100,000, Nevadans are unemployed and have been, primarily from the construction, engineering, and architecture sectors of our economy. Thousands of Nevadans have spent more than a year now doing what many of us here in Congress maybe haven't had the perspective of experiencing.…”