Political Quotes

“Madam President, for a bit of good news, last year we finally provided certainty to American exporters and their workers by enacting a 7-year reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank's charter. This is a big victory after years of obstruction by a handful of our Republican colleagues. We know what happened here in this Congress. In 2015, during the last debate on reauthorizing the Bank, a small group of opponents, supported by far-right special interests, tried to kill the Bank altogether. When that didn't work, they decided to block all nominees to Ex-Im's Board, denying it the quorum needed to approve transactions greater than $10 million. Their obstruction cost us more than 130,000 jobs a year by 2018. Unfortunately, a few Republicans continue to undermine American manufacturers and our workers by preventing Ex-Im from having a full Board of Directors. It is time for the Senate to consider the long delayed nominations of Republican Paul Shmotolokha and Democrat Claudia Slacik. Today's economic damage from COVID builds, and Senator McConnell, the leader of this body, refuses to let us do our jobs and pass additional help for families and communities of small businesses. Ex-Im will be called on--it is more important than ever--to help ensure the survival of our manufacturing base and thousands of small businesses and their workers. Ex-Im, during the last crisis, added 515 new small business clients in 2009 alone. The stakes are even higher today.…”