Political Quotes

“Madam President, the Senate needs to do everything it can to help create jobs, improve our economy, and address the basic needs of the average American. Unfortunately, many efforts to make meaningful progress on these issues have been thwarted in the last 2 months. Specifically, for the last 87 days, emergency assistance for job seekers has been blocked by gridlock. Despite the best efforts of several of my colleagues, including my colleague and friend Senator Dean Heller of Nevada, today over 2.2 million Americans are being denied vital assistance in what remains a very difficult economy, but I am pleased to say that a group of five Republicans and five Democrats have reached a principled compromise to end this impasse and help get people back on their feet. Indeed, I along with Senators Heller, Merkley, Collins, Booker, Portman, Brown, Murkowski, Durbin, and Kirk have introduced a bill to continue emergency unemployment insurance for 5 months retroactive from December 28. As I have advocated, this bill contains no cuts to the weeks of benefits available or the structure of the tiers of benefits, nor does it include other problematic policy changes. It is, however, fully paid for and includes some positive reforms that better align the unemployment insurance and workforce systems to help get people back to work sooner.…”