Political Quotes

“I rise to address our Nation's job crisis and to share some thoughts about why it is important that we proceed to debate on the Rebuild America Jobs Act. It may come as a surprise to some across the Nation that at this point this Chamber is not debating the Rebuild America Jobs Act but that we are debating whether to debate. Only in the Senate could we be engaged in that type of question, when across America millions of folks want to see us act, want to see us create jobs. It was only a few weeks ago we had a similar debate. That debate was over the America Jobs Act, a broad portfolio of measures to put our economy back on track and create jobs for Americans. To get closure on whether to debate, we had to get a supermajority under the rules of the Senate. My colleagues across the aisle opposed that and we could not get to the debate of the bill on how to create jobs. Now we have before us a smaller segment of that bill, one that focuses on the construction industry. Again, we find ourselves debating whether to debate rather than getting down to work and creating jobs. So I hope this time the outcome will be quite different. The jobs crisis has hit hard across this Nation. It hit especially hard in my home State of Oregon, where the job rate has been lowered as the unemployment rate has been higher than in most States across this Nation.…”