Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Florida. Mr. Speaker, in Washington over the last few months, we have seen a lot of what we are seeing today, a lot of talk from my Republican colleagues about ideological budget cuts and about divisive social issues. And today, once more, we are here debating repeal of part or all of the health care bill. But back home, we are hearing about one thing and largely one thing only, and that is job creation. Now, I appreciate my friend from North Carolina dressing up her remarks with some talk about jobs, but this debate today isn't about creating jobs. It is about a political agenda to take on the Democratically passed health care bill. But we need to start plugging into where Main Street is and having a real conversation about job creation in this country, and so I am here today to talk about one idea in particular that can reach out to the 5,000 manufacturers in my State, and the tens of thousands more of manufacturing employees who are looking for good middle class work and help from Congress that hasn't been forthcoming in the last 3 months. Since 2001, this country has shut down over 42,000 manufacturing plants. We have lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs; but during that same period of time, we have increased spending on defense manufacturing in this country by 81 percent. The problem is that 81 percent increase hasn't gone to factories in Connecticut or North Carolina or Florida or anywhere else.…”