Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are going to have a series of stacked votes at 4 o'clock. I want to spend a few minutes on three or four amendments and clarify some of the things I have heard rumbling. One is that we have an amendment that will, in fact, take away unemployment insurance for millionaires. Mr. President, 2,840 households who reported an income of greater than $1 million or more on tax returns were paid $18.6 million in unemployment insurance benefits in 2008. That number is higher in 2009. We don't have the final numbers yet. This included over 800 earning over $2 million and 17 with excess income of $10 million collecting unemployment benefits. We have an amendment that will prohibit that. There has been some concern to say that the costs associated with that, the way it was scored by CBO, would neutralize it; the savings versus the cost to eliminate that would be even. Even if that is true--and we have done a calculation, and we think it costs about $900,000 a year to have people applying for unemployment sign a statement that their income is not above $1 million. But even if it costs the same as what we are spending, we should not be giving unemployment benefits to people who are earning $1 million a year. It is foolish, and it exacerbates the tendency of enriching those who are already there versus what unemployment insurance is for--so those who are truly dependent on it can survive. I wanted to clarify that point.…”