Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to talk about where we are with regard to the end of the year and especially where we are with regard to the focus we should bring to bear on middle-income families. We have had a lot of discussion in the last couple weeks, using terms such as ``fiscal cliff'' and terms that involve tax policy. All that is important to debate, but sometimes what is lost in the midst of all that is what is happening to middle-income families. The sense I have, in talking to a lot of those families in Pennsylvania, is they have been asking their representatives in Washington to do at least two things: No. 1 is to try to work together to get agreements, not just in the near term but over a long period of time; and No. 2--and not in second place, because they are as fervent about this as they are about No. 1--they ask me all the time to do something to create jobs at a faster pace, to put in place strategies that will lead to job creation that is more accelerated. The good news is we have had some progress. If we look at the numbers for August, September, and October, it is right around 511,000 jobs created. That is good news and it is good progress. It is a lot better than where we were in the spring. If memory serves me, in the time period of April, May, and June, we had only created about 200,000. So this 3-month period with more than half a million jobs created is progress.…”