Political Quotes

“I would like to take this time to talk on the pending legislation with regard to China. In these times of deficit and debt, I think we should not launch a trade war with China. We are here because we borrowed too much. We have a spending habit that has weakened our economy. That spending habit was aided by China, but we can only blame ourselves for much of the economic weakness the United States now faces. A trade war with China would put in jeopardy a number of jobs from my State of Illinois. Illinois exports to China in 2000 totaled about $533 million. Roughly 2,500 people received their employment by virtue of sales to China 10 years ago. Today, exports to China total about $3.18 billion. The number of people employed by sales to China has grown from around 2,500 jobs to 15,000. In a State with a higher than average unemployment, where unemployment is growing faster than almost any other region of the country, I do not think we should put these jobs at risk with an unnecessary trade war with China. When we look at Illinois very directly, we see a major Peoria employer like Caterpillar, whose sales to China last year totaled about $3.2 billion roughly related to about 10,000 jobs in the direct and contractor and subcontractor area for sales to China. With Motorola, based in Schaumburg, sales totaled about $2 billion directly to China, impacting about 7,000 jobs.…”