Marcy Kaptur: “Today, Mr. Speaker, we are going to spend some time focusing on a very important issue that came before the Congress…”

“Today, Mr. Speaker, we are going to spend some time focusing on a very important issue that came before the Congress about a year ago called NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or as some of us would like to say, the agreement that some would call ``no more taking American jobs away someplace else, especially south of our border.'' If you have been reading the newspapers, though it is sometimes buried on page 17 or 25, you will note that in Mexico there is a severe financial crisis currently going on in that nation. the purpose of today's colloquy will be to discuss with my good friend, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] and others who will join us, what this means for the American worker and what it means for the American taxpayer, as well as the citizens of Mexico, because this week we are introducing legislation which the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] will talk about in just a second. For those of us who opposed NAFTA, it is difficult to get up here and say ``I told you so,'' but if the pain were not so great for thousands of people in our country and thousands of people in Mexico, we would not be so compelled as we are today. There is a new kind for foreign aid afoot in our land. It is called NAFTA. Because of the instability in Mexico, our taxpayers, with no vote occurring here in the Congress of the United States, our taxpayers are being asked to foot a multibillion dollar bail-out of the Mexican peso. We do not even get a seat at the table.”