Political Quotes

“let me thank Senator Enzi for his civility and his humor. I have enjoyed the process by which we have gotten to where we are today. But I must say that anyone who takes an objective look at this Republican budget can do nothing else but conclude that this is an absolute disaster for the working families of this country. In fact, one of the problems I have had in describing the Republican budget is that it is so bad--it is so far out of touch with where the American people are--that people really don't even believe us when we talk about what is in this budget, which is what I am going to do in a moment. Before I do that, I think we can all agree that what a budget is about is a development of priorities to address problems. We look at what is going on in our country as we assess the needs of the American people, and we build a budget around those needs. So let me begin by assessing what I believe are the needs of the American people. The fundamental economic reality of today is that for the last 40 years--not the last 6 years, not the last 20 years but the last 40 years--the middle class of this country has been disappearing. Today, we have more people living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of America, and yet while that is going on, the gap between the very, very, very rich and everybody else is growing wider and wider. Today, in fact, in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than any other major country on Earth.…”