Political Quotes

“Mr. President, in an hour or so, the Senate will be voting on our currency bill, S. 1619, the bipartisan bill I am a prime sponsor on, along with Senators Schumer, Graham, and Sessions, and a host of other Senators in both parties, including Senators Stabenow, Snowe, Collins, and Hagan. I thank my colleagues for the vote last week of well in excess of 60 bipartisan votes, allowing us to consider this measure. I am struck by some of my colleagues who dismiss this bill as a ``message'' bill. There are opponents of the bill, and there are always people who don't want to stand up to China. I think they are undercutting our ability to stop the hemorrhaging of our manufacturing jobs. That is their decision to make. Again, I am struck by how some of my colleagues dismiss this as a message bill. I don't know what a message bill means to anybody outside of Washington. I know this bill is a jobs bill. I was talking to an anchor on MSNBC, who said we lost almost 3 million jobs to China in the last decade, most of them manufacturing jobs. This is legislation that will stand up to the Chinese and say: You are not going to game the currency system or export from China into our market and have a 25-, 30-, 35-percent subsidy, and you are not going to put up a tariff using currency as that tariff, by and large, in effect, to add 25, 30, 35 percent to the cost of an American good sold into China.…”