Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, no one on our side disagrees that millions of people in this country now and in the future need constant education and the opportunity to gain new skills. Mr. Speaker, we all support apprenticeships. I want to tell a little story about how long I have been involved in helping to create apprenticeships. I have a brother who is 8 years younger than I, and it took me 7 years to finish college. I had just barely finished and was working at a new resort in North Carolina, Beech Mountain. He was a senior in high school, and he came to me and said: I don't want to go to college, but I don't want you and mom and daddy to be ashamed of me. We have created a system in this country where we think people have to have a baccalaureate degree to be successful. That is not true. I asked my brother what he wanted to do, and he said: I want to be a carpenter. I said: That is about the most honorable profession in the world. Some famous people were carpenters. So, I went to my boss. I don't know how I knew this, but I said: My brother would like to be a carpenter. We are desperate for carpenters, electricians, and plumbers here. Could we set up a carpentry apprenticeship program? We did that with the help of a local junior college, community college, contractors, and AGC. We set up a carpentry apprenticeship program. Seventeen guys, mostly recent high school graduates, enrolled in it.…”