Political Quotes

“The answer to that is pretty obvious; but what is interesting, I remember standing on this floor 10 years ago with David Bonior, who was the real leader on these trade issues in Congress years ago, and they promised in those days with NAFTA that only the good-paying jobs would stay and these low-end, low-wage jobs would go overseas; and over time in Mexico they would begin to have stronger environmental laws, over time they would make higher wages, over time they would have good labor law, worker safety, all of that. But as the gentleman from Oregon's (Mr. DeFazio) questions intimate, obviously these countries are not moving in that direction. In fact, we are seeing our country move in their direction. Our country move in their direction in terms of there are significantly fewer pension systems in this country, good pensions for workers than there were 10 years ago, and particularly fewer than there were in 1973 when this trade debacle really started in this country. That was really a key year in terms of turning the way we did trade. We have seen our pension system atrophy. We have seen wages stagnate in most of these 30 years. We have seen environmental laws and States played off against States, and the Federal Government played off against the Mexican Government to weaken all these standards. Food safety laws are not as enforced, and clearly our food supply is not as safe as it would be if these trade agreements would actually raise their standards.”