Political Quotes

“Madam President, reserving the right to object, I know the Presiding Officer, the junior Senator from North Carolina, wants to be part of the TAA extension. I appreciate that, as do Senator Casey and Senator McCain and Senator Baucus. My problem is this: I want to work with Senator McCain on this. I want to make this work. I want to extend the Andean trade preferences. He and I worked this agreement out with Senator Kyl and Senator Casey and others at the end of last year, in the last 2 hours of the session. I think that was the time line. Right at the end, we were able to extend all of this, but only for 6 weeks. He wanted longer, I wanted longer, but we couldn't get an agreement. Senator McCain asked, is it not reasonable to extend the old TAA. The old TAA started 50 years ago. It was a great program. It was bipartisan. It has always been that. But it is not reasonable to do only the old TAA. There have been 150,000 workers who are eligible since the Recovery Act passed for the expanded TAA because they happen to have lost their jobs to countries we didn't have a free trade agreement with. They were not eligible under the old one, but they are eligible under the new one. Or they happen to be service workers. They are eligible under the new one but not under the old one. It is a situation where because of things we do in this body--we pass a trade agreement, people lose their jobs.…”