Political Quotes

“Well, you're right on an issue that is very close to my own policies, which is, if it's American taxpayer money that's being used to buy a bus, a light railcar, a streetcar, a locomotive, or a train set for BART in California or the Metro system here in Washington, D.C., then our money must be used to buy American-made equipment. Plain and simple, those are American jobs. We had a terrible example of bad policy in California. The San Francisco Bay Bridge, Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, a multibillion- dollar project, the steel in that bridge went up to bid. It's $1 billion or so of steel for the bridge. One contractor put in two bids. One bid was 10 percent cheaper, and that was Chinese steel. The other bid was American steel, and it was 10 percent more. So the bridge authority, in its wisdom, selected the cheaper. It turns out that cheaper is not necessarily better and, ultimately, not cheaper. It turned out that it was far more expensive. There were serious flaws in the steel, in the welding, and 6,000 to 8,000 jobs were in China rather than in the United States. Ultimately, the cost was higher, and we did not benefit in the United States, even in California, from the increased economic activity that would have occurred if the direct jobs in manufacturing and welding and fabricating that steel were in the United States. We don't want that ever again. If it's our taxpayer money, from whatever source, then make it in America.…”