Political Quotes

“today as we stand in these halls, we are experiencing an unprecedented crisis in our community, our cities, and our towns all across America, as dedicated hardworking citizens find themselves receiving pink slips, they are laid off. And the big problem is that they are unable to find jobs. This economic crisis is at its worst. In the district that I represent in rural eastern North Carolina, an area that once thrived on agriculture and textiles, both of which have been hard hit, it appears that as far as the textile industry, there is little or no hope for recovery. More than half a million jobs have been lost nationwide in the last 5 months alone. At this moment there are fewer jobs in the labor market than at any other time since the current recession began. Since January of 2001, the Nation has lost 2.7 million private sector jobs, and the unemployment rate has risen from 4.5 in 2001 to 6 percent 2 years later. In North Carolina we have lost 130,000 jobs since the Bush administration took office; 80,000 of these jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector; 5,328 textiles/apparel jobs have been lost in the first district alone since 1999; 32,640 textile/apparel jobs have been lost in North Carolina since 1999; 12,669 manufacturing jobs lost in the first district since 2001. In addition to plant closings all across the State, they are leaving thousands of families in financial peril.”