Political Quotes

“This weekend, I believe it was Saturday, I was in Lordstown, OH, celebrating the 2-year anniversary of the first Chevy Cruze that came off the Lordstown GM Chevy plant line. I was there the day the first Cruze came out. The first three cars--painted red, white, and blue--represented the determination of workers and that company and the Nation to succeed to bounce back, despite national naysayers who were willing to stand idly by while our economy stalled. We read it in newspapers, saw it on television, heard it on the radio how some elected officials not only wanted to turn their back on an industry that has provided middle-class wages, college educations, homes, and cars to millions of Americans, but a number of elected officials wanted to bet against the American automotive industry. During the height of the economic crisis, when American manufacturing was sputtering--and the Presiding Officer knows the statistics because he paid attention in his State of Alaska, which is not so much a manufacturing State but a State that contributes a lot to manufacturing. The Presiding Officer knows what has happened in this country. From 2000 to 2010, we lost 5 million manufacturing jobs. That was one-third of all the manufacturing jobs in this country. Six thousand plants closed in the United States in that decade.…”