Political Quotes

“hopefully later this evening or tomorrow there will be a very important vote regarding the extension of long- term unemployment benefits. What that vote is about is to make it very clear which side we are on. Are we prepared to stand with over 1 million workers and their children and say, no, we are not going to turn our back on you, we are not going to leave you literally out in the cold, worrying how you are going to heat your home or pay your rent or put gas in your car or, as fellow Americans, we are going to stand with you and make sure you at least have some income through extended unemployment benefits coming in to your family. I think, as we all know, the good news is that unemployment has gone down in recent years. When President Bush left office we were hemorrhaging over 700,000 jobs a month--clearly unsustainable, clearly a tragedy for our Nation. Today, while the economy is nowhere near where it needs to be, where we want it to be, the fact is we are growing several hundred thousand jobs a month. That is the good news. The bad news is that real unemployment is close to 13 percent, if we count those people who have given up looking for work and those people who are working part time when they want to work full time. The even worse news is that long-term unemployment today is almost the highest it has ever been on record. Today it takes about 37 weeks for the average unemployed American to find a job.…”