Pastoral Resources

If you can work and if you're offered a job and you don't take it, you cannot continue to claim benefits. It will be extremely tough.

Our constituents paid into Social Security, and they want it paid back to them when they retire. Cutting Social Security benefits that Americans have earned should always be a last resort.

If you're totally illiterate and living on one dollar a day, the benefits of globalization never come to you.

I am aware of the usefulness of science to society and of the benefits society derives from it.

Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers.

We have so many people retiring that we do not have enough people paying into the system to be able to provide the benefits for those collecting those benefits.

One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits - a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment.

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes nothing, for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime.

But reducing harmful emissions, abating our dependence on foreign oil and developing alternative renewable energy sources have benefits that go beyond environmental health, they improve personal health, enhance national security and encourage our nation's economic viability.

We have an opportunity, but we have an obligation to senior citizens and to the younger people who are entering the workforce today to help ensure that they are going to be able to trust the government to have a workable program that benefits them as well.

Harvey never had an original idea or thought in his life. I was out wandering around the country doing charity benefits, mainly, when I asked him to come along.

We've got gays working there. If they can demonstrate long-term relationships, we make same-sex benefits available just as we do with common-law marriages. Gays are productive people. Some fly airplanes, some work in breweries.

While some people are certainly seeing economic benefits, many others are unemployed, underemployed, without health insurance and struggling to make ends meet.

The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization.

I respect the state workers and I respect their unions, but we simply can't afford to pay benefits and pensions that are out of line with economic reality.

There is no question of the benefits that opening a market of a billion people will bring to American businesses. But as I said last year, this will test China and the world trade system.

Bureaucracy gives birth to itself and then expects maternity benefits.

The fine print in the President's Social Security proposal is that all present and future workers under age 55 will have their promised retirement benefits cut.

Providing working Minnesotans with at least seven days of paid sick leave every year is the right thing to do to. It benefits our families and helps our businesses become more worker friendly and family friendly.

Many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from serious, long-term, physical and mental health problems, due to their service. It is unconscionable to cut the already limited health care benefits available to these brave men and women.