Political Quotes

“Madam President, American manufacturing has taken quite a hit in the last 15 years in this country. Some 30 years ago, U.S. manufacturing made up some 25 percent of gross domestic product. Today that number has declined to somewhere in the vicinity of 10 or 11 percent of gross domestic product. That has meant literally millions of jobs paying good wages in cities and suburbs and rural America that have simply disappeared. Some have been lost to technology. Far too many have been lost to unfair trade practices, as jobs are moved overseas. Some of that responsibility lies with this Congress, which has written laws or refused to change laws that encourage companies through trade agreements and through tax laws to shut down production in Worcester, MA, or Wooster, OH, and move to Wuhan, China. But we have seen some good news. From 2000 to 2010, we lost about 5 million manufacturing jobs; 60,000 plants closed in this country. The good news we have begun to see is that since the auto rescue in 2008 and 2009 and since this President has been relatively aggressive-- better than his predecessors--in enforcing trade laws, we have seen growth in manufacturing. Since 2009--again, because of trade enforcement, because of the auto rescue--about 500,000 manufacturing jobs have been created. We see new investments in advanced manufacturing. We see new investments in clean energy. Natural gas production is providing domestic manufacturers with an affordable energy source.…”