WASHINGTON, DC – House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today responding to comments made in an interview in yesterday's Washington Times by Phil Gramm, a McCain advisor, on the state of the economy:
“Phil Gramm, John McCain’s top economic advisor and a former Republican Senator, did us all a favor yesterday: He gave us a candid glimpse of Republicans’ economic mindset. ‘You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,’ he told the Washington Times. ‘We have sort of become a nation of whiners.’
“Some, like former Senator Gramm, may be fully insulated from the effects of $4.11 gallons of gas; of unemployment that affects 8.5 million Americans; or of a rash of foreclosures that have made this housing market the worst since the Great Depression. But for millions of American families, those facts add up to a very real recession - not a mental one. They are scraping to make ends meet - not whining. And to suggest otherwise demonstrates just how out of touch John McCain and the Republican Party – which has backed this President’s failed policies – are.”
|