If you have a problem where you have just poverty, long-term insurance benefits for an emergency aren't going to solve that either. You have got to fix the social safety net.

Unemployment insurance was meant to be a bridge for temporary spells of unemployment. The bad news is all the evidence is that the longer you have unemployment insurance, the longer people stay out of work, their skills erode. The job they ultimately get pays less. And that's not to their benefit.

After I became an attorney, the mother of two girls I'd known in high school came to see me. She'd endured years of heinous abuse from her husband that nearly destroyed her. I'd never suspected a thing.

My Republican friends are lamenting reconciliation. But I would recommend for them to go back and look at history.

My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway. In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true.

[Social Security ] is not in crisis at this stage. Leave Social Security alone. We have a lot of other places we can look that is in crisis. But Social Security is not.

American families cannot compete with billionaires. Our involvement in government should not be dependent on our bank account balances