Political Quotes

“I bring news back from Oklahoma to this body and a request for dialogue. The COVID bill that was passed a little over a month ago--that bill provided all kinds of relief. As this body knows, we were deeply divided on that bill and some of the issues within it. One of the issues stretched out the debate all the way to the last moment, and it was the additional unemployment assistance. The conversation about the additional unemployment assistance is this: The economy is reopening. Is this the time to extend additional money above and beyond State unemployment assistance, what we normally do? With unemployment rates going down, should we add more money on top of it? No one really knew what would happen when that occurred, but we had some suspicions. The 2 weeks I spent traveling around the State, the week before Easter and after Easter, in town after town after town after town after town, I heard the same thing from employees and employers. Employees would tell me that somebody who used to work next to them is now at home because they are making as much money at home on unemployment assistance as they would when working. So the person standing there working at the factory, the person standing there working at the restaurant is ticked off at the person who is at home watching TV, making as much money as they are. The employer is just as frustrated or more because they have all kinds of orders coming into their business, saying: Can you send us more of this?…”