“College is part of the American dream. It shouldnt be part of a financial nightmare for families”

When you’re up in Maine, there is Canada, I mean it’s looking right at you; it’s a different viewpoint.

I always said that though I was the first, I wanted to be the first of many.

One hundred thousand dollars was the bridge that enabled me to go on TV, not miss a beat or miss an opportunity, and raise then my own money to carry me forth. And that’s how I got to be the first Democratic woman in the United States Senate’s history.

I would like to be the first ambassador to the United States from the United States.

I will fight in the United States Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008, a mission that would potentially increase Hubbles power and efficiency by a factor of 10 and allow us to look back almost to the beginning of the universe.

There were times, though, when the women came together on a partisan basis. [When we stopped] the privatization of Social Security during George Bush, we linked arms.

I truly believe that before I retire from public office, I’ll be voting for a woman for president.

You cant get more for less. You get what you pay for.

I’m so proud of Maryland’s firefighters, risking their lives to protect others, but we need to protect our protectors with the best equipment training and resources.

George Mitchell was a very good leader, and we were more than satisfied with his leadership. And I know the guys were jealous.

Family responsibility, yes, and always. Family bankruptcy due to the cruel rules of government, no.

His great passion for education and [making sure] people have an opportunity. Of course that’s what came out of the George Mitchell Institute and his scholarships in those high schools.

I think Paul Sarbanes and his wife Christine socialized with them [George and Heather Mitchell] more than I did, but we all hung out, or we saw each other in groups.

On the most recent battles on health insurance reform, the women led the battle to end gender discrimination by the insurance companies [where] women paid more and got less of a benefit, and also the whole issue of prevention.

Senator [George] Mitchell is a man of many talents and he’s swift on his feet, but one would not think of him as ‘dancing with the stars.’ And we had this great rock ‘n’ roll fund raiser.

I thought in this country, the best social program was a job. Yet minimum wage jobs arent paying enough to keep families out of poverty

Physical pain is a fact that comes with living, just as illness or financial woes or broken relationships are facts. But misery is a state of mind, a reaction to the facts, that can be controlled or altered by an act of will.

The financial crisis appears to be mostly behind us, and the economy seems to have stabilized and is expanding again.

I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained. The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict.

We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system.

Importantly, in the 1930s, in the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve, despite its mandate, was quite passive and, as a result, financial crisis became very severe, lasted essentially from 1929 to 1933.

The crisis in Europe has affected the US economy by acting as a drag on our exports, weighing on business and consumer confidence and pressuring US financial markets and institutions.

The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained.

Our mission, as set forth by the Congress is a critical one: to preserve price stability, to foster maximum sustainable growth in output and employment, and to promote a stable and efficient financial system that serves all Americans well and fairly.