Don Nickles: “Let me reiterate to my friend from Minnesota, I have already supported trade adjustment assistance. Trade adjustment…”

“Let me reiterate to my friend from Minnesota, I have already supported trade adjustment assistance. Trade adjustment assistance is to provide assistance to people who lose their jobs in training. That is the purpose of the program. The average cost has been about $10,000 a year. About one out of three who are eligible have participated in the program to be retrained to get a job. I support that. Now our colleagues are saying, in addition to that, we want to offer health care, and health care up to 2 years. If people believe we are going to take a program such as this and say to retired steelworkers, we are going to give this benefit for 1 year, I do not believe it. The bill they referred to, S. 2189, is a permanent program and its cost is estimated to be $13 billion, not a 1-year program, not a couple-hundred-million-dollar program. It is a permanent program. That is their objective, to have the Federal Government pick up retired steelworkers' health care costs. I do not think that is fair to taxpayers. I do not think it is fair to other industries such as textiles, the auto industry, airlines, and others that have also suffered losses. So I urge my colleagues to vote no.”