Political Quotes

“I am here to call for the end of the $4 billion in giveaways that taxpayers are providing to big oil companies every year. At a time of skyrocketing gas prices and of record oil company profits and of difficult decisions about where and how to cut the Federal deficit, we should not be providing big oil with expensive and unnecessary taxpayer handouts. Gas prices nationwide are averaging $3.96, up over a dollar from this time a year ago. In my home State of Rhode Island the average price per gallon is now over four bucks. These prices are putting a significant dent in family budgets across the country. In the last 50 years prices in real terms have only been this high twice--in 1981 after the oil crisis and in parts of 2007 and 2008. High gas prices not only increase the cost of driving, but they leave families with less to spend on other basic necessities. They ripple throughout the economy as gas-guzzling buses strain school district and public transportation budgets, food prices increase from trucking costs, and wherever transportation is a factor it raises costs for American consumers. The current price spike could not have come at a worse time. When gas prices last peaked in July 2008, unemployment nationally was 5.8 percent. Now unemployment nationally is 8.8 percent, and it is even higher in many States. In my home State of Rhode Island, we are still struggling under a staggering 11-percent unemployment rate.…”