On the recordNovember 4, 2015
I thank the ranking member for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I just want to address a statement that was made a little earlier from my friend from Indiana. He quoted the chairman and said that, in a perfect world, we would not need Ex-Im. I agree. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need nuclear weapons. In a perfect world, nobody would have nuclear weapons, but nobody in this Chamber is suggesting that we unilaterally disarm our nuclear weapons in order to live by the politics of purity. I had dinner the other day with a friend of mine who has a manufacturing company. It is a small manufacturing company. They export drilling components to Third World countries to help them drill for their own energy resources. He informed me that he has actually lost 15 percent of his business since this charter has expired. That is real money. That is real exporting. That is a real situation that affects real people's lives. Look, I understand that people want to amend this, and I think they have a right to desire to amend this. The place to amend this would have been in the committee, which I am not on by the way. It would have been an opportunity to have amended it and to have had a full debate and to have brought the amended bill to the floor of the House of Representatives to debate. That didn't happen. I urge my colleagues to vote against this.
