Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentlewoman yielding her time. And it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be here tonight to talk about the success of some of the actions that this Congress has taken on the economy. I had a town meeting almost a year ago to the day. It was at the end of April in 2009, and there were a lot of folks there who were complaining about the vote for the Recovery Act, the stimulus bill. And I said to them at that time, look, I'll make a deal with you. How about we have this discussion today, but we also have this discussion a year from now. Why don't we reconvene and have a discussion about what has happened over the past year. And so I would invite anyone who wants to have that discussion in this Chamber or across the country, let's take a walk down memory lane. And as the gentlewoman talked about, let's take a look at where we were at the end of April in 2009. The 6-month period ending at the end of April 2009 resulted in an average monthly loss of over 600,000 jobs per month every month for that 6-month period. For that same 6-month period, ending at the end of April 2010, we have averaged over 100,000 jobs gained, including 290,000 jobs created in the month of April alone. The stock market bottomed out in the middle of March 2009 at 6,500. Today, a little bit more than a year later, we're around 1,500. Gross domestic product, the first quarter of 2009 was minus six.”