John Larson: “I just think we need an administration worthy of their ideas. As we look at this particular bill, I want to go into the…”

“I just think we need an administration worthy of their ideas. As we look at this particular bill, I want to go into the genesis of this thought. As the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon) has pointed out in his opening remarks, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) initially included this in his approach to the administration. It is strongly needed. At a Chamber of Commerce meeting in my district between the communities of Bristol, Berlin and Southington, they talked at great length. In fact, if I closed my eyes, I was astonished, it seemed like I was at an AFL-CIO meeting, and yet they were talking about the concerns that small manufacturers have today and the need to have a strong voice within the Department of Commerce. They wondered out loud how is it in this great country of ours we can have a Department of Agriculture and not have a department of manufacturing, and not have at least an under secretary who is going to speak out on their behalf. Candidly, they would say to me after the meeting, when we first saw labor being outsourced, when we first saw what was happening to labor, we kind of looked the other way, never thinking we would be next. Now we know it is happening to us, and now we need to have a strong voice in Congress and the administration.”