Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I want to join with my colleagues this evening to take up an extremely important subject. This is about the heart and soul and the opportunity of the middle class of America. This is about, once again, rebuilding the great American manufacturing machine. Through the last century, America came to prominence for many reasons. But one of the most important was that we knew how to make things. This was the manufacturing heart of the world. Just 20 years ago, nearly 20 million American workers were employed in manufacturing, and that gave rise to the great middle class and the stability of this Nation, and the opportunity for an individual to get an education, go into the manufacturing sector as an engineer or as a line worker and earn enough money to buy a home, take care of their family, and pay for their education--lead and live that good middle class life. But that was yesterday. Today, we have about 11 million people in manufacturing. We've seen the decline of manufacturing in the United States keeping pace with the decline of the middle class. It doesn't have to be that way. Tonight, my colleagues and I are going to talk about policies that we can put in place here in Congress--policies that we must put in place--to rebuild the American manufacturing machine. Joining me is Mr. Blumenauer of Oregon, Ms. Jan Schakowsky from Illinois, and a couple other of my colleagues who are coming in a little later. What this is all about is government policy.…”