Chuck Schumer: “Today I am introducing my first bills as a United States Senator. I said over the last year that the picture that I want…”

“Today I am introducing my first bills as a United States Senator. I said over the last year that the picture that I want to keep at the forefront of my mind is that of families sitting around their kitchen table paying their bills, planning for retirement, affording a home, paying for college for their children, and discussing the quality of their local schools. Today I am introducing my first bills for those families at the kitchen table. And let me tell you a little bit about these families. They are the same in Brooklyn and Buffalo, Mt. Vernon and Massapequa, Syracuse and Setauket. They are living in a time of both overwhelming promise and overwhelming challenge. The promise--the upside--is that America remains indisputably the preeminent economy in the world. The challenge--the downside--is that for most families there is a great deal of uncertainty about the future. They are concerned that forces beyond their control--rising college costs, inferior schools, struggling communities--put them behind the eight-ball. Their concern isn't so much that the U.S. economy will turn sour. It's that they, or their town, or their children may be washed aside in the economic tide. The families of Upstate New York have lived that reality for six years. The nine bills that I am introducing today are designed to help families deal and thrive with the changing times of a global, competitive economy.”