Political Quotes

“Madam President, as we all know, our economy is suffering. We have an unemployment rate that is currently at 9.7 percent. Furthermore, we have large portions of the population that are either underemployed or have dropped out of the workforce because of limited job prospects. There are a variety of factors that have contributed to this recession. The government's response so far has been largely ineffective, particularly with regard to employment, and I would argue that the best thing that we can do to address the issue of unemployment and having to extend unemployment benefits and COBRA and other types of benefits, all of which are considered in this underlying bill, is to get people back to work. That is fundamentally the very best thing that we can be doing-- focusing on how we create jobs, how we grow this economy, how we provide opportunities for those who have lost their jobs, who are underemployed, to get back into the workforce. That, to me, ought to be the focus of our efforts in the Senate. The bill that was passed about a year ago, the stimulus legislation which we now know is going to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $862 billion without interest, with interest well over $1 trillion, was all borrowed money. It is going to add $1 trillion to the national debt. Despite that amount of spending, only $6.2 billion was spent on tax incentives for small businesses, and another $730 million was spent in funding for the Small Business Administration.…”