Political Quotes

“Absolutely. I remember back in the early 1990s, we were concerned about the twin deficits, the trade deficit and the budget deficit. We had a budget deficit then of about $300 billion a year and a trade deficit, as the Presiding Officer knows--who joined me in voting against NAFTA a decade ago--of under $100 billion. We considered that a serious problem. Today, President Bush doesn't recognize that this trade deficit means anything. To the contrary, he says, it seems to be working. Let's do more of it. Again, I go back to what his father said, that a billion dollars in trade deficit translates into 13,000 lost jobs. You can see how it does. Because a billion dollars in trade deficit means we are buying a billion dollars, we are importing a billion dollars more than we are selling, and that means we are manufacturing less because we are not making it ourselves. If we manufacture less, it means thousands of Ohioans or North Dakotans or New Jerseyans are finding they are not working at $12 or $15 or $20 an hour. If those plants lay off workers, communities get less tax dollars, police, firemen and teachers are laid off. It undercuts the economic vitality of the community and the public safety. It undercuts the ability of our schools to educate our children. It is clearly a downward spiral that is only accelerated when we pass a trade agreement with Colombia and with Peru and Panama and another trade agreement with South Korea.”