American Workers Quotes

Over the past two years, the House has passed more than 50 measures focused on stimulating the economy and expanding opportunities for American workers. The tax relief provisions in this package have been an important part of our pro-growth agenda. ~ Roger Wicker

The skills and productivity of American Workers, not to mention the taxes they pay, are the greatest economic resource our country has. To condemn large numbers of them to unemployment, to deprive the Treasury of their tax contributions and to force them to live on unemployment at public expense is the most expensive luxury any society ever chose to buy. ~ Lane Kirkland

I want to make sure that the American worker has an opportunity to see their wages rise and their incomes increase. ~ Rick Santorum

I think it's a little insulting, a bit insulting to American workers when Rand Paul says that unemployment insurance is a disservice. ~ Chuck Schumer

American workers are first rate. ~ Christopher Dodd

I just don't think there's that many people who think it's wrong to have control on our borders. That's not racism. It's not racism to question some of the political correctness today that's going on, to recognize that things are going as well as - for American workers, as they'd like, because people, their frustration is arising from a deep sense of unease that Washington is fiddling while their house is burning. ~ Jeff Sessions

Many of my students assume that government protection is the only thing ensuring decent wages for most American workers. But basic economics shows that competition between employers for workers can be very effective at preventing businesses from misbehaving. ~ Christina Romer

President Bush said that American workers will need new skills to get the new jobs in the 21st century. Some of the skills they're going to need are Spanish, Chinese, Korean, because that's where the jobs went. Who better than Bush as an example of what can happen when you take a job without any training. ~ Jay Leno

I share the skepticism that my friends have about NAFTA. It was woefully weak in protecting workers and on the enforcement side. The question is can we meaningfully build a trade regime that has as its North Star protecting American workers and American jobs through meaningful enforcement? I think we can. ~ Thomas Perez

When it is fair, American workers can compete and win. I cannot support the TPP in its current form because it doesn't provide that level playing field. ~ Rob Portman

NAFTA, supported by the Secretary cost, us 800,000 jobs nationwide, tens of thousands of jobs in the Midwest. Permanent normal trade relations with China cost us millions of jobs. Look, I was on a picket line in early 1990's against NFATA because you didn't need a PhD in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour. ~ Bernie Sanders

The Labor Department's Hall of Honor recognizes men and women - like Cesar Chavez, Helen Keller and the Workers of the Memphis Sanitation Strike - who have made invaluable contributions to the welfare of American workers. ~ Thomas Perez

Congress should ban advertising that preys upon children, it should stop subsidizing dead-end jobs, it should pass tougher food safety laws, it should protect American workers from serious harm, it should fight against dangerous concentrations of economic power. ~ Eric Schlosser

I reject the idea that any job is too hard or too dirty for American workers to do. American workers just expect and demand to be paid a decent wage. ~ Jan C. Ting

While prices of goods continue to rise, American worker's wages remain stagnant. ~ Ed Pastor

We have to examine the extent to which we export poverty to other societies. When we decide that we will import products from China that are produced by people earning less than a dollar an hour, and grant their country most-favored-nation status (political contributions notwithstanding), we are deciding to make American workers who must earn the minimum wage compete with them. I am not suggesting that we close the doors to China or to Mexico, but I am suggesting that we look very carefully at the web of international relationships that we are creating. At the very minimum, we should understand that we have two choices in our country: we can raise world living standards by exporting those standards, or we can lower living standards- not only the world's but also our own- by deciding that it is acceptable for the products of exploited labor to enter this country. ~ Julianne Malveaux

The provisions contained in this plan will ensure that the United States has the infrastructure necessary to meet energy needs through future decades, easing dependence on unpredictable foreign oil markets, and creating thousands of new jobs for American workers. ~ Ron Lewis

In the United States, resources exist to retrain displaced workers and promote the development of technologies that create new job opportunities for American workers. ~ Oscar Arias

A massive new guest worker program hurts American workers ... If a guest worker program were to provide a path to citizenship, we would be rewarding lawbreakers with the greatest honor our country can bestow - citizenship. ~ Lamar S. Smith

The people of Sydney who can speak of my work [on flying-machine models] without a smile are very scarce; it is doubtless the same with American workers. I know that success is dead sure to come, and therefore do not waste time and words in trying to convince unbelievers. ~ Lawrence Hargrave

The Republican Party is doubling down on this trickle-down theory that says, 'Thou shalt concentrate wealth at the very top of our society. Thou shalt remove regulation from wherever you find it, even on Wall Street. And thou shalt keep wages low for American workers so that we can be more competitive.' ~ Martin O'Malley

Contrary to everything you've heard, the only options are not: Amnesty or deporting 11 million people. There's also the option of letting them stay in the shadows - or the same thing we've been doing for the last thirty years. Americans are under no moral obligation to grant amnesty to people who have broken our laws. "The moral thing to do" is usually defined as "following the law." The fact that Democrats want 30 million new voters is not a good enough reason to ignore the law and screw over American workers, as well as legal immigrants already here. How about Republicans try this: We're not giving you anything - not even half - because there's no reason to do so. ~ Ann Coulter

America's workers face a battle for their jobs. They are the finest workers in the world. American workers grow, harvest, and mine some of the world's highest quality and most plentiful raw materials. ~ Kit Bond

The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay. Consumers recklessly rang up Coach handbags and Manolo Blahnik shoes on credit cards because they seemed to confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them ~ Chris Hedges

Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful payday for a CEO. Indeed, he can 'earn' more in that single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker earns in a lifetime of cleaning toilets. Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the all-too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure. ~ Warren Buffett

Americans are under no moral obligation to grant amnesty to people who have broken our laws. "The moral thing to do" is usually defined as "following the law." The fact that Democrats want 30 million new voters is not a good enough reason to ignore the law and screw over American workers, as well as legal immigrants already here. ~ Ann Coulter

The workers who harvest our food have been systematically denied the basic rights that are granted to all other American workers. They can be fired for trying to form a union or for attempting to improve their working conditions. They are not eligible for overtime pay, disability, or even unemployment insurance. ~ Eric Schneiderman

Through good times and bad, American workers and their families have been able to rely on Social Security to provide guaranteed protection against the loss of earnings due to retirement, disability, or death. ~ Sander Levin

The right to organize is a fundamental right for American workers. ~ Eric Schneiderman

Since Social Security was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 to ensure economic security for American workers, poverty among American seniors has dramatically declined. ~ Steve Israel

In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they'd never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy. ~ James Surowiecki

At this point, American workers are pretty respectful of the bosses they loathe. ~ Ted Rall

Caterpillar exported $20 billion of goods in 2011, all by American hands and American workers, to all over the world. In order to do that, we have to create jobs in all those countries that we export to, to be able to sell there. ~ Douglas R. Oberhelman

We must give the American worker the first option of ownership. ~ Jesse Jackson

Unfortunately, the United States has entered into several free trade agreements that do not sufficiently protect and support our manufacturing industries and the millions of American workers they employ. ~ Dan Kildee

While writing my memoir, 'When Skateboards Will Be Free,' I would sometimes have to pore over hours of microfilm at the New York Public Library in order to try to get one obscure detail right. For instance, was the Socialist Workers Party originally called the American Workers Party or the Workers Party of the United States? ~ Said Sayrafiezadeh

One of the great dilemmas for America will be that American companies will do very well while American workers might not. ~ Fareed Zakaria

The Recovery plan will put money in the pockets of the American worker, create and save millions of new jobs and invest in crucial areas such as health care, education, energy independence and a new infrastructure. ~ Valerie Jarrett

Today, over half of American workers have less than $10,000 in savings and have no idea how they will be able to retire with any shred of dignity. ~ Bernie Sanders

It was fairly obvious to anyone who studied the situation that China was dumping bedroom furniture in the U.S. to the detriment of our American workers and manufacturers to gain market access and share. ~ Howard Coble

You are never going to have, in a country as rich as ours [the USA], that borders a country as poor as Mexico, an end to immigration. You just won't. The question is, if you make it humane and if you make it regulated. It's much better for an American worker to compete against a regulated immigrant inside labor standards, than it is to ever to compete against an illegal immigrant. ~ Ezra Klein

We used to have food picked and used to have houses built and we used to have chicken properly processed and it was Americans that did it. If we are going to continue to utilize those goods, then what's going to have to happen is that the employers are going to have to elevate the wages in order to attract American workers to do those jobs. ~ Mo Brooks

The American worker is more productive than he's ever been. We've got more people to do it. We've got all the ingredients for a sensational future. It's just that right now the athlete's on the floor. This is a super athlete. ~ Howard Warren Buffett

And the reason that I was one of the first, not one of the last to be in opposition to the TPP is that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Vietnam today making a minimum wage of $0.65 an hour. Look, what we have got to do is tell corporate America that they cannot continue to shut down. We've lost 60,000 factories since 2001. They're going to start having to, if I'm president, invest in this country - not in China, not in Mexico. ~ Bernie Sanders

Instead, so long as Kennedy lived and Khrushchev stayed in power, there was steady movement toward the relaxation of tension - the American University speech, the Limited Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the "hotline" between the White House and the Kremlin. ~ Robert F. Kennedy

Socialists, charity workers, carers, people who volunteer to help others; they're all - and he's quite convinced about this - they're all in reality mean-spirited bastards, either self-deceiving bastards or - for their own filthy left-wing reasons - deliberately trying to destroy the self-esteem of normal, healthily ambitious people like him. Because if only everybody looked after their own interests everything would be fine, see? Level playing field, with everybody nakedly ambitious and selfish; everybody knows where they are. If some people aren't totally selfish, or, even worse, 'pretend' not to be selfish, then it messes up the whole system. It makes it more unfair, not fairer, the way they'd claim. He calls people like that do-gooders, and they make him angry. I think he would actually prefer do-badders, which is a pretty fucked up attitude when you think about it. He feels quite strongly about them. Never misses an opportunity to complain that they're liars and frauds. Frankly, Ade, altogether, it makes him sound like - and I firmly believe he actually is - a complete cunt. ~ Iain M. Banks

This exile is a fascinating symbolic act from our modern psychoanalytic viewpoint, for we have held in earlier chapters that the greatest threat and greatest cause of anxiety for an American near the end of the twentieth century is not castration but ostracism, the terrible fate of being exiled by one's group. Many a contemporary man castrates himself or permits himself to be castrated because of fear of being exiled if he doesn't. He renounces his power and conforms under the great threat and peril of ostracism.
- Rollo May, "The Tragedy of Truth About Oneself" (The Psycology of Existence: An Integrative, Clinical Perspective by Kirk Schneider and Rollo May), pp. 14-15 ~ Rollo May

In my time first cousins did not meet like strangers. But we are learning modesty from the Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us. ~ J. Sheridan Le Fanu

American culture is a sheep culture - long on talk about individualism, but even longer on absolute conformity. Most still believe that individuality is based on which model car you like best - commodity identity, a selection of personalities on a shelf full of products approved by the Federal Identity Administration. I'm a Taurus aspiring to be a Lexus. ~ Stan Goff

Sarah Palin is a figure of fun on the American left, easily lampooned as a know-nothing, gun-toting ex-beauty queen who loves God and the red, white and blue above pretty much anything else except for Todd, her macho husband, who races snowmobiles across the Alaskan tundra. ~ Jay Parini

You done decided you want to go to the dance yet Brenda?" "Didn't I tell you that dances was lame?" "What's lame about them?" "I like mature niggas." "I'm not a nigga." "What are you?" "An African American." "Well I don't like African Americans. I like niggas. ~ Vincent Morris

There are lots of things that I will probably never experience in this life. Military combat. Being dictator of a small central American country. Dunking a basketball. Being a famous rock star. Or walking on Mars. But one thing I have been, and will always be, is an entrepreneur. ~ Michael Arrington

Like the American soldiers who went before them, they are putting their lives on the line to protect ours. ~ Doc Hastings

There is no excuse for this administration shielding information about Iraq and the fact that we have great difficulties there from the American people. ~ Jay Inslee

The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself. ~ Ron Paul

Everyone in the Middle East pretty much wants to come and be an American citizen, but pretty much everybody is angry with the U. S. foreign policy. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

The pioneer labor historian John Commons was not wrong when he wrote around World War One that exploiting and deepening such tensions as outpacing scientific management among U.S. innovations where bossing was concerned. Amidst the general miseries of proletarianization, workers also learned that one source of meager benefits and protections could lie in claiming a white skin. ~ David Roediger

When the weeks have built up with frustration and immense stress and one of your co-workers, a manager or an employee triggers irritation or angers you, knowing how to respond in a mindful way can pay huge dividends. Knowing how to not take other people's emotional baggage personally and intuitively sensing when to bring up concerns and when not to is an expression of emotional intelligence. This is all possible if we are being truly mindful. ~ Christopher Dines

Suddenly, it hit me. Why not do a talk show that featured not one, but four engaging female hosts of varying ages and perspectives. . . create a "kitchen table" forum for discussion. If it was on their minds, ya gotta figure that it's on the minds of half of American women, right? ~ Jamie Collins

Major General Leonard Wood

Leonard Wood was an army officer and physician, born October 9, 1860 in Winchester, New Hampshire. His first assignment was in 1886 at Fort Huachuca, Arizona where he fought in the last campaign against the fierce Apache warrior Geronimo. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for carrying dispatches 100 miles through hostile territory and was promoted to the rank of Captain, commanding a detachment of the 8th Infantry.

From 1887 to 1898, he served as a medical officer in a number of positions, the last of which was as the personal physician to President William McKinley. In 1898 at the beginning of the war with Spain, he was given command of the 1st Volunteer Cavalry. The regiment was soon to be known as the "Rough Riders." Wood lead his men on the famous charge up San Juan Hill and was given a field promotion to brigadier general.

In 1898 he was appointed the Military Governor of Santiago de Cuba. In 1920, as a retired Major General, Wood ran as the Republican candidate for the presidency of the United States, losing to Warren Harding. In 1921 following his defeat, General Wood accepted the post of Governor General of the Philippines. He held this position from 1921 to 1927, when he died of a brain tumor in Boston, on 7 August 1927, at 66 years of age after which he was buried, with full honors, in Arlington National Cemetery. ~ Hank Bracker

I thought Sundays were supposed to be relaxing. As a male citizen of America, I'm entitled on Sundays to watch athletic men in tight uniforms ritualistically invade one another's territory, and while they're resting I get to be bombarded with commercials about trucks, pizza, beer, and financial services. That's how it's supposed to be; that's the American dream. ~ Kevin Hearne

The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense. ~ Ida B. Wells

Out in this profane city,
sometimes sidewalks
seem the only cement that connects us,
pressed by the sacred strangers
we will never touch. ~ B.J. Ward

The paradox of innovation is this: CEO's often complain about lack of innovation, while workers often say leaders are hostile to new ideas. ~ Patrick Dixon

Look at the truth from how it stands, not where it comes from. The truth is still the truth no matter whether it is spoken by an Indian, an American, a Chinese, an European, an African or an Australian! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

...[I]t doesn't take an advanced degree to figure out that this education talk is less a strategy for mitigating inequality than it is a way of rationalizing it. To attribute economic results to school years finished and SAT scores achieved is to remove matters from the realm of, well, economics and to relocate them to the provinces of personal striving and individual intelligence. From this perspective, wages aren't what they are because one party (management) has a certain amount of power over the other (workers); wages are like that because the god of the market, being surpassingly fair, rewards those who show talent and gumption. Good people are those who get a gold star from their teacher in elementary school, a fat acceptance letter from a good college, and a good life when they graduate. All because they are the best. Those who don't pay attention in high school get to spend their days picking up discarded cans by the side of the road. Both outcomes are our own doing. ~ Thomas Frank

Labor produces marvels for the rich but it produces deprivation for the worker. It produces palaces, but hovels for the worker. It produces beauty, but deformity for the worker. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back to barbaric labor, and it turns the remainder into machines. ~ Karl Marx

The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is sponsored by Coca-Cola. ~ Ben Goldacre

Meat workers may have been looked down upon socially, but at least they were well-paid and were a fit and lively bunch as a result of hard, honest physical work. ~ Michael Leunig

We have become the new american slaves: but there is a revolution coming. It is a revolution of individual liberty. It will free us without violence. It will begin with the self. It will spread to the workplace. It will turn our corporate masters into our servants. It will free us of government's tyranny. The revolution will spread to all corners of the nation, and at last, we shall be free. ~ Gerry Spence

I am not an American; I am one of twenty-two million black people who are victims of Americanism. ~ Malcolm X

Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don't ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers. ~ Oswald Chambers

No one ever comes up to me and says, 'Hey man, I loved your work in 'Road Trip.' They say, 'Are you that guy?' Like, they have no idea. 'Were you in 'American Pie 2?' ~ Paulo Costanzo

In the elaborate con that is American electoral politics, the Republican voter has long been the easiest mark in the game, the biggest dope in the room. Everyone inside the Beltway knows this. The Republican voters themselves are the only ones who never saw it. Elections ~ Matt Taibbi

Minimum wage increases. The Nobel Prize economist Milton Friedman has observed that the minimum wage is "one of the most ... anti-black laws on the statute books" because it destroys entry level jobs for second paycheck earners, teens, and other unskilled workers. ~ David Horowitz

In living in the world by his own will and skill, the stupidest peasant or tribesman is more competent than the most intelligent worker or technician or intellectual in a society of specialists. ~ Wendell Berry

The American people need to know that money is being used effectively because frankly, the nation can't afford careless spending, no matter how well-intentioned. ~ Michael Enzi

Children born to-day may see the beginnings of a genuine state church in the Republic, with a hierarchy of live wires and a purely American theology. I regret that I am too old to wait for it, for if it comes it will be a lulu. ~ H.L. Mencken

I feel like kids in general, not just African-American kids, are influenced by what they see, both positive and negative. ~ Curtis Granderson

The time has come when the whole world must be concerned about me. From now on, American Christianity must follow me. ~ Sun Myung Moon

Mr. Bush is flaky, incompetent, and the most dangerous American president in a generation. ~ Mark Latham

Convenience is the American way. ~ Cheech Marin

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? ~ Patrick Henry

In film, I was surprised when I first saw the movie 'Drive.' I said, 'Oh, God. It sounds great - I love it. Wow, this could be the soundtrack from 'American Gigolo' or 'Cat People.' But I'm surprised that the director would agree with a composer to write that kind of sound. ~ Giorgio Moroder

Conversation is an exchange of gifts. Native American tribal wisdom teaches that when you encounter a person on your life path, you must seek to find out what gifts you have for one another so that you may exchange them before going your separate ways. This seems true even of daily encounters with those we know well. We come into one another's presence bearing whatever harvest of experience the day has offered, and we foster relationship by making a gift of what we have received. ~ Marilyn Chandler McEntyre