Political Quotes

“we can help our struggling manufacturing sector today by increasing the American content of the equipment purchased under this bill from 50 to 65 percent. This modest increase will cause no real hardship for the District of Columbia. It will be greatly appreciated by our Nation's desperate manufacturers. Today's Washington Post reported that the vast majority of the 2.7 million jobs lost since 2001 are not coming back unless new jobs are created in novel and dynamic ways. We need to be proactive on this bill and make it an engine for job growth by buying from our own producers and getting them hiring again. The people are looking to Congress for action. From the Washington Post September 3, 2003, it quoted, ``In his Labor Day address (The President) signaled that the loss of 2.6 million manufacturing jobs during his administration had moved to the top of his list of domestic policy concerns.'' Our domestic manufacturing base is being hollowed out right before our own eyes. In 1981 Rockford, Illinois, the largest city of the congressional district that I have the pleasure to represent, had an unemployment rate of 25 percent, the highest in the Nation. Today it is 11.3 percent. I do not want to see a recurrence of what happened in 1981. This summer, two more factories closed down, and we are in danger of seeing our industrial base irreparably harmed.”