Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today as a former mill worker who punched a time clock for over 29 years at the Great Northern Paper Company in East Millinocket, Maine. What I've seen firsthand is the devastation that these free trade agreements can do to our communities. This agreement is the most economically significant since NAFTA, and its consequences for America's middle class will be enormous. Since NAFTA, we have lost more than 5 million manufacturing jobs. We've seen more than 50,000 factories close in the last 10 years alone. The Korea FTA will bring more of the same. It will cost us more manufacturing jobs, it will shut down more factories, and it will ship more jobs overseas, all at a time of 9 percent unemployment when the American middle class can least afford it. My colleagues have already highlighted the many reasons to oppose the Korea FTA, but I want to highlight two of those issues again. First, it does nothing to protect the U.S. in the face of Korea's currency manipulation. Second, this agreement isn't just a giveaway to Korea; it's also a giveaway to China. Korea has a history of manipulating its currency to boost its exports. Once in 1988 and twice in 1989, the U.S. Treasury Department officially labeled Korea a currency manipulator.…”