Political Quotes

“I want to thank my good friend from Ohio for yielding me the time and for his steadfast opposition to these free trade agreements, and I rise in strong opposition to this proposed Panama Free Trade Agreement. Who in their right mind could believe any free trade agreements modeled on NAFTA would create jobs in our country? I remember during the 1990s fighting the first NAFTA accord here, and Newt Gingrich saying at that time NAFTA would help the United States ``by increasing American jobs through world sales.'' Sure. Here's what NAFTA yielded: a trillion dollars in accumulated trade deficit, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lost American jobs that moved from Cleveland and moved from Avon Lake and moved from Sandusky and moved from Toledo and moved from Madeira to other places in this world south of the border. Why don't we go back and fix this? Now, let's be honest. Panama's entire GDP equals about 6 percent of the economy of the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. So what could this Panama agreement actually be about? Well, letters we've received give us some insight into what it might be about. With Panama, we know the country has a long-standing money laundering problem and that it is a tax haven for corporations. How convenient. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office included Panama on its 50-country tax haven list. Get the picture? Starting to clear some of the fog? We all know about some of these Cayman Island accounts.…”