Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first of all, I appreciate Senator Reed's comments about the state of this economy and what the supercommittee is doing and the direction we need to go on all of these tax issues and all of these spending issues. He is so right. We know several things about Social Security. We know it has been around for 75 years. We know if we do things right here in Congress, it will be around for another 75 years. We know it makes a huge difference in the lives of our citizens and our constituents in Oregon, in Ohio, in Rhode Island, and all over this country. We know that more than half of seniors in my State who are on Social Security get more than half of their income from Social Security, and it plays such an important role in their lives. We also know that until recently, there was not a cost- of-living adjustment for seniors. We know that over the last 2 years, even though the President and the majority in the Senate--the Democrats in the Senate and in the House--voted for a $250 one-time payment for seniors to help them deal with the increase in costs of their health care--except for that, we know that Social Security beneficiaries in this country didn't get a cost-of-living adjustment for 2 years. We also know--and the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Oregon, is working with Senator Mikulski from Maryland and me on legislation to fix this.…”