Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have a chance on the floor of this Chamber to come and debate issues that are important to the success of our families across this Nation. There are some who will come to this floor and they will argue that we should do everything possible to help the most successful; that we should do everything possible to help the most powerful; we should do everything possible to help the wealthiest, those who already have secured the American dream. They have it in their hands. I come tonight to argue a different case: that we should put our energy behind helping the working families of this Nation, families who are struggling in an economy where jobs have been disappearing left and right; where families are looking for work but there are multiple applicants for each and every job; where someone may be clinging to a job and then losing it when another firm goes under. I am delighted we have arrested the slide into another Great Depression. We didn't know a year ago whether we were going to see every single month a 1-percent increase in unemployment until we were at 25 percent unemployment or 30 percent unemployment. So we did what we could to break that cycle, and it has been broken. But we remain at a very high level of unemployment--10 percent plus, on average, across this country and much higher in my home State of Oregon.…”