WASHINGTON -- House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Representatives Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) at a gas station near the Capitol on Wednesday and offered their views on rising gasoline prices and what they termed Republican economic failures.
Pelosi's remarks:
Good afternoon. As I was walking over here, I was thinking of President Bush and when he said that things were so great with the economy. I was thinking how out of touch he is with middle-income families [image-nocss] in America; how out of touch he is with an economy where we have record budget deficits, record trade deficits, the lowest purchasing power for the minimum wage in years, a record number of jobs going overseas and the worst record of job creation of any President since Herbert Hoover.
I don't think the economy is going well, Mr. President. That's what you may hear from your corporate CEO friends, but that is not what Democrats are hearing from middle-income Americans. What we are hearing from them is that they want a new direction. The country is going in the wrong direction. We propose a New Direction' that will create jobs, make health care more affordable, make higher education more possible and do so in a fiscally responsible way.
One of the principles we will advocate is energy independence. The middle-class squeeze that American families are experiencing is tightened by the cost of gasoline at the pump. The price at the pump is so high that if you make the minimum wage, you can't even get two gallons of gas for one hour of work.
Democrats are proposing a New Direction.' We are proposing energy independence and we intend to achieve it within 10 years. We are proposing that America's farmers will fuel America's energy independence, and that we will have efficiency, conservation and alternative energy. In the first 100 hours of a new Congress if elected, Democrats will roll back the subsidies to Big Oilbillions of dollars of subsidies to energy companies at a time when they are making record, historic, and obscene profits for their CEOs at the expense of the American consumer.
Democrats are proposing a New Direction' in favor of America's working families and in favor the consumer.Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.