Political Quotes

“I thank Mr. Larson for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be here tonight. Last year, during a long campaign season, two campaigns and two elections, there was no issue in western Pennsylvania that came to me from my constituents more often than Social Security, and it was usually with a heavy heart. I will never forget one man who came up to me at an event. He was about 77 years old. He told me how he started paying into Social Security when he was 12. They don't really make them like that anymore, but in western Pennsylvania, people started working at earlier and earlier ages to make ends meet. The gentleman had worked in a factory. He had been laid off. He told me: We were in the streets, not sure where to go during the day, but we didn't want our kids to know that we were out of work. He had five kids. He became a janitor, got hurt on the job, needed his union to stick up for him, but that cut into his prime years of earning. So the gentleman becomes 65, he retires, eventually collects Social Security, but he still works to this day as a janitor. So he is telling me all about his life, and he pulls out one of those big key rings that every janitor seems to have, and he shoves it into my hand. He had pulled off of it the dog tag that he carried when he served in the U.S. Army in Korea in the 1950s. He pressed it into my palm and he just looked up at me and said: Don't you break your promise to us.…”