Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I first want to commend and salute the work that has been done already on this legislation by the senior Senator from Maine and for her leadership. Senator Collins appropriately focused on the issue of jobs and jobs creation. I know in our State at present we are finally below the half million unemployed number. We went many months where the unemployment rates went as high as 550,000 people. It went down, but it hovered around half a million people for far too many months. We are below that. Now we are at about 443,000. That is still a big number--below 7 percent but just by a little bit. So job creation has to be job one for me and for most of us if not all of us in the Senate. If that is the reality, that our No. 1 obligation is job creation, we have to be able to show the people we represent that we are doing something about it. We cannot do much of anything unless we can get bipartisan cooperation. That is why I am so grateful Senator Collins has been willing to work with me on this legislation and to move it forward and to come together as a team to say to both of our leaders that we want to have legislative action on this bill this year. The reasons are pretty fundamental. If you have run a small business, you know what we are talking about. But even if you have not, even if you have not had that experience, you have encountered the challenges that small business owners face.…”