Political Quotes

“Madam President, earlier this month the Quinnipiac poll asked voters what the top priority they had for President Obama and Members of Congress in 2014: 18 percent said health care; 16 percent said jobs and unemployment; 15 percent said the economy in general. By comparison, only 1 percent of the voters said income inequality. In other words, 99 percent of the voters in this Quinnipiac poll felt that income inequality should not be our top priority and that, rather, they would like for us to focus on not only the symptoms of the problems but the root causes: how do we get people back to work; how do we increase upward income mobility, letting people climb that ladder of success so they can pursue their own American dream. Yet the most significant economic proposal President Obama mentioned in his State of the Union was aimed not at fixing our health care system, creating jobs or boosting growth but, rather, at this idea of reducing income inequality. The American people are pretty darn smart, and they understand that we need to grow the size of the pie, not only cut up the pie into different pieces. The best way to do that is by guaranteeing that people have the opportunity to pursue their dreams, not some socialistic notion of let's slice up the pie in Washington, DC. No one does better under that kind of system. But I also mentioned the President's--apparently--signature proposal for addressing income inequality; that is, by raising the minimum wage.…”