Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague. Pope Francis I, as he integrated these kinds of things into his life, he exhorted his parish priests--similar to Lincoln saying ``I need my public opinion bath''--to smell like the flock and to get among people and talk to them and learn from them, to smell like the flock, to be one of them. I am not Catholic. I know my friend from Illinois is Roman Catholic. But this Pope has really brought us to a different level. He has called upon our better angels, if you will. Before yielding to Senator Durbin for his remarks, I have one more point to make about the minimum wage. The belief among many is that the minimum wage is for a bunch of teenagers. That is simply not true. Most minimum wage earners in this country are not teenagers; most of them are supporting themselves and in many cases supporting a spouse or a family or someone in their family who is disabled or a close friend. This is a wage people really depend on to get along. It is not just spending money for a high school kid; families depend on this. That is why it is so important that in the next few weeks we raise the minimum wage; tie this subminimum wage, tipped wage, to that increase and index it for inflation so we don't have to do this every 3 or 4 years just to keep up with inflation. I yield the floor. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The assistant majority leader. ____________________”