Political Quotes

“Now, we have heard that OPIC helps American workers, and we have heard that it hurts American workers. I want to focus on that one claim. Let us look at one of these transactions. In 1997, OPIC financed the building for Levi Strauss of a garment-making factory in Turkey, a $29-million guarantee, because they did not want to finance it themselves and private insurers would not do it. Well, what happened when Levi Strauss built that factory? They laid off 6,400 workers at U.S. garment-making factories in 11 locations in the United States. Now, do my colleagues think that those 6,400 employees, if any of them are listening today, that they will buy this argument that we are creating jobs? We lost those jobs. And not only did we lose those jobs, but the Labor Department had to go in, and let me tell my colleagues what they had to do. They had to provide unemployment assistance, and they also had to provide trade adjustment assistance because of the Levi Strauss factory which had been built in Turkey, financed by OPIC. I strongly urge support of this amendment.”