Quotes By Debbie Wasserman Schultz

When President Obama passed health care reform, it was personal! And when Governor Romney says he would repeal Obamacare and put insurance companies back in charge of a woman's health, that's personal too.

We have to change course. And we have to do so now. That is why I worked with my colleagues in Washington to pass the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

People used to say everyone knows someone who's had breast cancer. In the past few weeks, I've learned something else: Everyone has someone close to them who has had breast cancer.

So the tough questions that have been asked of Sarah Palin thus far just have been about the fact that she doesn't know anything and isn't ready to be vice president. That's fair game and it has nothing to do with her gender.

I have to admit, like so many women, I always knew there was a chance. But like so many women, I never thought it would be me. I never thought I'd hear those devastating words: 'You have breast cancer.'

We've been sitting at the compromise table for a long time. We're just waiting for that cold chair to be warmed up by the Republican leadership. They still have time to do the right thing and be responsible. They just seem to be moving further and further away from it.

Really it's hard to know where the Republican Party ends and the Tea Party begins.

We do not need to end Medicare. We don't need to throw people who are younger than 55 years old to the wolves which is what we do.

And I think we need a combination of a freeze, potentially, and also we need to sit down with the - with the banking industry and talk to them about ways in which we can help them be able to work those mortgages out, because it's absolutely imperative that we keep people in their homes.

We own the economy. We own the beginning of the turnaround and we want to make sure that we continue that pace of recovery, not go back to the policies of the past under the Bush administration that put us in the ditch in the first place.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House right now seems to have been strangled by the tea party.

Both referred to the Affordable Care Act, which is the accurate title of the health care reform law, as 'Obamacare.' That is a disparaging reference to the President of the United States, it is meant as a disparaging reference to the President of the United States.

We certainly could have voted on making the middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts for working families permanent had the Republicans not insisted that the only way they would support those tax breaks is if we also added $700 billion to the deficit to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. That's what was really disturbing.

President Obama is making the tough decisions to get our country going in the right direction, has taken our economy from job losses to 15 straight months of job gains, cut taxes 26 times, and focused like a laser on getting the middle class back on its feet while those campaigning to replace him have failed to show they can lead on these issues.

Even though I don't agree with either Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann on virtually anything, I do think the unique scrutiny - because of their gender and highlighting the potential conflict between them is a product of the media's desire for juicy storylines. I think it's inappropriate.

Breast cancer is not just a disease that strikes at women. It strikes at the very heart of who we are as women: how others perceive us, how we perceive ourselves, how we live, work and raise our families-or whether we do these things at all.

Aren't we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats? This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship.

But this convention is about more than re-nominating President Obama. It's about Americans coming together to build one economy - not from the top down, but from the middle class out and the bottom up.

To be clear, climate change is a true 800 pound gorilla in the room. The effects of global warming threaten global environmental upheaval over the coming century. But for South Florida and the Everglades, it could be our death knell if urgent action is not taken.

At a time when our moral standing in the world has been weakened by a rubber stamp Justice Department that placed the Bush Administration above the law, we now need someone who is objective and independent. And, make no mistake, Eric Holder is independent.

And I'll tell you, honestly, folks that I talk to, the 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in America, that I am one of, understand that we're done with insurance companies dropping us or denying us coverage because of - because we have a preexisting condition.

We're going to need to absorb some pain. The Republicans want to pile all the pain on people who can least afford it and the middle class and Democrats under his leadership want to make sure that we can address deficit reduction and continue to make investments and shared sacrifice is going to be imperative in order to be able to do that.

The economic recession in America wasn't caused by bad luck; it was caused by bad Republican policies. But the Republican candidates are doubling down on the same flawed policies that led to the loss of 3.6 million jobs in the final months of 2008 and gravely affected middle class families across America.

And so to those who suggest that we are somehow 'harming' young women by encouraging them to take charge of their health we say this: We are not harming young women by educating them. We are arming them with information that they will carry with them throughout their lives.

President Obama is closing the prescription drug doughnut hole. He strengthened Medicare! He extended the life of the program by eight years. And what Governor Romney and Congressman Ryan won't admit is that their plan would require current seniors to pay, on average, $600 more each year for prescription drugs.

Diversity on the bench is critical. As practitioners, you need judges who 'get it!' We need judges who understand what discrimination feels like. We need judges who understand what inequality feels like. We need judges who understand the subtleties of unfair treatment and who are willing to call it out when they see it!

And American voters understand that if we want to keep fighting to move in the new - in a new direction, we've got a long way to go. And we need to make sure we continue with Democrats being in the majority.

All too often in tough economic times, it is the environment that gets left on the cutting room floors of Congress as everyone scraps for limited federal dollars.

Democrats are going to proudly run on the fact that we turned the economy around. It was our policies under President Obama's leadership through the Recovery Act, through investing in the automobile industry.

This sordid affair has become an unacceptable distraction for Representative Weiner, his family, his constituents and the House - and for the good of all, he should step aside and address those things that should be most important - his and his family's well-being.