Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I have listened to the debate in the last few hours, yesterday, and today. I have heard these debates for years about unemployment compensation, unemployment insurance. In the end, some of my colleagues vote for extension of unemployment benefits for hard-working Americans, Americans who have had jobs and are trying to find jobs but have lost their jobs. When I saw what happened a month ago when Senator Bunning, time and time again, single-handedly for a period of time--because of the peculiar rules of this institution, one Senator representing a State that has less than 1 percent of the population, one Senator representing a State which makes up less than 1 percent of the country--granted the minority leader is in that State too--one Senator can block the extension of unemployment compensation to millions of Americans, to people in Youngstown, Lima, Mansfield, or Chillicothe and Toledo. Now we have a handful of his colleagues doing the same thing. Sometimes I think they don't understand unemployment compensation. They believe unemployment is welfare. It is called unemployment insurance. That doesn't mean people are looking for a handout. It means workers, as virtually everyone does who is working, pay into an insurance fund when they are working. The whole point is, if they lose their job they collect unemployment insurance. It is like you buy car insurance, hoping you don't have to use it.…”