Political Quotes

“a few months ago I asked my constituents in the State of Vermont, and it turns out people around the country, a very simple question. We sent out an e-mail and said: Tell me, what does the decline of the middle class mean to you personally? Not in great esoteric terms, not in academic terms--What is going on in your life? Frankly, in my State we expected to receive a few dozen responses. We ended up receiving over 700 responses. Then I asked people in Vermont and also around the country: Tell me what these high gas and oil prices mean to you. We received 1,100 e-mails that came in, 90 percent from Vermont but some from around the country. I want to do two things this afternoon. I want to read, in the words of ordinary people, what these high gas and oil prices are meaning, in terms of how they impact their lives; and what the decline of the middle class means in the words of people who are in the midst of that decline. For many years I have been very angry about the Bush administration talking about how strong the economy was, how robust the economy was. That is like the operation being a success except that the patient died. The economy has been so great except that the working people in the economy are seeing a decline in their standard of living. What we are seeing, generally speaking, in the economy is poverty increasing, the middle class shrinking, while the people on top have never had it so good since the 1920s.”