Bob Kerrey: “I wonder if my friend also will talk about something else that I think is terribly important. That is, all of us, when…”

“I wonder if my friend also will talk about something else that I think is terribly important. That is, all of us, when we go home and talk to people who are working, they feel a great deal of insecurity about their jobs today. As I saw that announcement, it seems to me I heard them say that there may be somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 fewer jobs as a consequence of this merger, that they are expected to have some savings, as they call it, as a consequence. I believe I also saw Ted Turner is going to get $20 million a year for 5 years and Mike Milken got $50 million for shaking hands, none of which I doubt will benefit those people who will lose their jobs. James Fallows the other morning talked about the fact that a single corporation, Boeing, laid more people off in the last 5 years than every corporation in Japan has over that comparable period of time. What is going on, I ask my friend from North Dakota? We heard all through this debate that this piece of legislation was going to create jobs, that we are going to get more opportunity, that this is going to be good for the American worker? Do you see it that way?”