Political Quotes

“Each year, American companies are forced to lay off workers or shut down entirely, but it's not because of hard economic times. Instead, the costs of product liability insurance and outrageous damage awards are driving them out of business. We now live in the most litigious society on earth. Our courts are packed with frivolous lawsuits filed by people seeking multi-million dollar payments for modest damages. As a result, we are all paying a huge price--from the job market to the supermarket. Let us take the first step by reforming the product liability system. Congress did just that, when it sent President Clinton the Product Liability Legal Reform Act. This legislation was a carefully crafted bipartisan bill that, among other things, would have limited most punitive damage awards to twice the plaintiff's compensatory damages, or $25,000--whichever is greater. The bill would have simply injected predictability and sanity into our out-of-control legal system and protected American companies from unfair and outrageous damage awards. The American people and America's employers, however, were dealt a big blow when President Clinton vetoed this bipartisan, common-sense reform effort. Almost 90 percent of the American people supported the bill. Consumers already pay 30 percent more on the price of a step ladder and 95 percent more for the price of childhood vaccine due to outrageous product liability costs, and we simply can't afford to pay any more.”