John Mica: “I saw a headline that should send chills into the spine of every American and every Member of Congress. It says ``U.S.…”

“I saw a headline that should send chills into the spine of every American and every Member of Congress. It says ``U.S. trade gap grew by 43 percent in July.'' Now if that does not knock your socks off and you are not concerned about this, then you are not awake. The opportunities that we are destroying for our children by not getting our international trade functions in order are going to really ruin the future again for our children. Let me show you our current international trade organization. This is 19 agencies deal with promoting, financing assistance for international trade. This is the current structure. It is a rat's maze. Any business person who could get Federal assistance from this rat's maze and have Government cooperate with business and industry so we could provide good paying jobs, they cannot do it under this structure. When I first came to Congress, I introduced a reorganization that would put trade finance, trade promotion and trade assistance all together in a sound, reasonable package to provide assistance to give us an opportunity to increase our jobs.”