Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Bob Melendez (D-NJ) castigate the Republican policies of the Bush administration that have brought us to this point and how a John McCain presidency will be just more of the same. Senate Democrats:

Refusing to police lenders and neglecting to protect consumers enabled the subprime crisis that has brought first the American economy and now Wall Street to its knees. Bush-McCain Republicans' "anything goes" approach to governing cost Americans jobs and hurts the American taxpayer. With the economic news only getting worse each day, Democrats believe that we must urgently pass another economic recovery package.

But Bob Geiger got the best statement on the state of the economy and John McCain from Sen. Bernie Sanders:

"One does try to get a handle on understanding what world Senator McCain and President Bush are living in when they would suggest that ``the fundamentals of our economy are strong.' Clearly, they have not been talking to working families around the United States of America.

"My perception of the economy is if you get off of the country club circuit, you stop talking to the millionaires and the billionaires and the large campaign contributors, and you talk to ordinary working people, people who own small businesses, what you find, in fact, is that the middle class in our country is under more assault than has been the case since before the Great Depression."

Well said.