Political Quotes

“I so appreciate the leadership of Senator Durbin on the DREAM Act. Nobody has kept the DREAM Act alive more than he, and nobody has spoken more passionately or cares more about young people. The point of so much of what he is talking about is giving people an opportunity. If they work hard and play by the rules, they can get ahead in this country. While I do not come to the floor today to talk about immigration and the DREAM Act, I support what Senator Durbin is doing. I come to speak about something else that is related to allowing people to have the opportunity to get ahead, and that is Ohio manufacturing and why it is so important to our country. The best ticket to the middle class in the last 100 years in the State of Ohio and all over the country has been people making things. The way to create wealth is to either mine it or grow it or make it. The Presiding Officer in his State of Colorado understands all three of those. In Colorado they mine ore, they grow crops, they make products, as they do in Ohio. Ohio is increasingly becoming an energy State in many ways and a leading farm State. Our biggest industry in a sense in Ohio is agriculture. We are also the No. 3 manufacturing State in the United States of America. Only Texas and Colorado produce more than Ohio does. They are States two and three times our size in population and, in area, more than that. We know that from 2000 to 2010, we lost one-third of the manufacturing jobs in this country.…”