Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in 12 days, unemployment insurance will expire for 1.3 million Americans. This will impact virtually every State. Over the course of the next year, it will set back millions of hard-working families, slow down job growth, and slow our economic recovery. Today I filed three amendments to the Bipartisan Budget Agreement Act. The amendments would extend UI for 1 month, 3 months, or a year respectively. While I believe the best policy is to extend unemployment insurance for 1 year in order to keep our economic recovery moving forward, I am willing to work with my colleagues who object to extending it for the full year to find a path forward. What we must, I think, provide is at least a message to those people that they will not see their benefits eliminated on December 28, and that we will, in fact, be working to make sure that this protection is in place for families all cross this country. Over the next several days I will be coming to the floor seeking consent and urging my colleagues to extend unemployment insurance. The expiration of unemployment insurance will be devastating to families across the entire Nation who rely on this as the last remaining source of support, in many cases for people who have worked hard for many years and because of this economy have lost their jobs. This is a stressful time. My home State of Rhode Island has an unemployment rate of 9.2 percent. We have been struggling since 2008 and 2009. This is very difficult for people.…”