Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today we have an opportunity to assist literally hundreds of thousands of families across this country who are out of work through no fault of their own, who are battling with the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, who are chasing jobs that have disappeared, and they are looking everywhere to try to find work. We have the opportunity to extend unemployment benefits for an additional year. In my State of Rhode Island, people are in a very serious situation. They are struggling to stay in their homes, to educate their children, to deal with the challenges of everyday life. They have worked hard and long all of their lives, and now they are finding it difficult to find a job. In every situation previously in this country, we have come to their assistance. We have done so by extending unemployment benefits. We have never failed to do that as long as the unemployment rate was above 7.2 or 7.4 percent. Today across the country, it is close to 9 percent nationally. In my State of Rhode Island, it is much higher. We have always done it on an emergency basis because it truly is an emergency. We haven't had to offset because we have always determined that it was necessary to get the money to the people who could use it, who needed it desperately, and we should do that again.…”