Political Quotes

“I would like to use that final 10 minutes then, Mr. Speaker, to close by highlighting the points that my colleague Mr. Jeffries just did a phenomenal job of laying out, one being that this is not the first time unemployment insurance benefits have been extended. In fact, this chart shows that while there is still more work to be done to help the unemployed--and I completely agree that our focus must be on creating jobs and on growing the economy. That is why the Congressional Black Caucus and individual Members like myself have proposed jobs-creating legislation. The first bill I introduced as a Member of Congress was a jobs-creating measure to help people in Nevada's Fourth District go to work, to help bring down our stubbornly high unemployment. For those who are in the unemployment calculation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from January 2007 to date, unemployment insurance has repeatedly been extended, including by Republican administrations. It was in June of 2008 that then-President George W. Bush authorized emergency unemployment insurance benefits to be extended. What was the unemployment rate at the time? 5.6 percent. He didn't extend unemployment insurance one time--he extended it five times--and he didn't offer a proposal for how it had to be paid because it was an emergency. It was an emergency then, and it is an emergency now with the national unemployment rate just below 7 percent.…”