Political Quotes

“at 2:30 this afternoon, the Senate will vote on a motion to proceed to the fast-track bill which was recently approved by the Finance Committee. I will be strongly opposing that legislation. In a nutshell, here is the reality of the American economy today: While we are certainly better off than we were 6\1/2\ years ago, the truth is that for the last 40 years the American middle class has been disappearing. The truth is that today we have some 45 million Americans living in poverty, and that is almost at the highest rate in the modern history of America. While the middle class continues to shrink, we are seeing more income and wealth inequality than at any time in our country since 1929, and it is worse in America than any other major country on Earth. Today, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent. Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. In the last 2 years, the 14 wealthiest people in this country have seen an increase in their wealth of $157 billion, and that $157 billion is more wealth than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans. How is that happening? Why is it happening? We have seen a huge increase in technology, productivity is way up, and the reality is that most working people should be seeing an increase in their income. Yet, median family income has gone down by almost $5,000 since 1999. How does that happen?…”