Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished member of this subcommittee and the full committee, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott). (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.) Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. We surely need to ensure that the TANF program does not expire, which is the basic purpose of this extension, but we would be remiss if we didn't say that the status quo falls short of what is needed in these difficult times. Nearly one out of every two Americans is scraping by in poverty or with very low income. We're talking about people below $44,000. That's the people who are just barely making it with a family of four in this country. That's what the Census Bureau found when they used the new supplemental poverty measure based on legislation I proposed in the Congress. That means about 150 million Americans are struggling to get by. {time} 1330 Just 2 days ago on this floor, the response to this epidemic of suffering from the Republicans was to just suggest that we ought to cut off unemployment benefits to millions of Americans. Now, imagine yourself in the middle class--and there are a lot of people who think they're in the middle class. Think about what that means when somebody says, We're going to make it harder for you to get unemployment benefits when you need them. It is morally wrong and is terrible economic policy.…”