Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, last month the Congressional Budget Office released a report that examined household income distribution between 1979 and 2007. The most disturbing figure to me in this report is that the top 1 percent of income earners have seen their average real after-tax household income grow by 275 percent. Middle-income Americans saw an increase of 40 percent over the same period of time. This report illuminates a sad fact: Income inequality in our country is growing at a staggering pace. The report is pointing out what many of my constituents tell me as I travel around my district from Cumberland to Pawtucket to Newport, from community dinners and talking to business owners: This economy is not working for the majority of middle class families. In fact, the hardworking middle class of our country is being hollowed out, a middle class made up of people that are just trying to provide a good life for themselves and their families. My real fear is that if we let that happen, we'll never get it back. Those here in Washington need to remember that our job is to help people and to strengthen the middle class of this country. The way back to prosperity is not to ignore the problem; it's through investing in workforce retraining, infrastructure, housing, and education for tomorrow. We can't wait any longer. Now is the time to act. We need to work together in a bipartisan way to get our economy and our country moving again.…”