Political Quotes

“I commend the remarks by the Senator from Alaska and before him the Senator from Rhode Island and others tonight. One of the reasons we are here tonight is because we have been trying, over the last 18 months, to get some of our colleagues on the other side to join us in job creation strategies. We had almost no Senators-- at the time just three on the other side--join our side to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That legislation, which we passed in the early part of 2009, has created--one rather conservative estimate--about 3 million jobs. But in an economy where we lost 8 million, we have to keep going and put in place other strategies. We passed the HIRE Act not too long ago. When we pass a lot of legislation, it goes right by people. That HIRE Act provided a payroll tax credit for the hiring of an individual who has been unemployed for 60 or more days. That has created a number of jobs. We just passed a bill, and the President signed into law today, the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act, a direct infusion to small businesses across the United States of America--$12 billion in tax breaks directly to small businesses. In addition to that, there is a loan fund for our smaller banks, our community banks, to provide most of the capital to most of the businesses in America because we know small businesses create most of the jobs. We have been taking step after step. None of it is perfect. Not one bill will lead to a full recovery.”