Political Quotes

“I was happy to listen to my colleague. What this means is the people of Alabama, Iowa, Oregon, and everywhere else could come to one of our townhall meetings, have the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement in our lap, and ask questions of their elected representatives about a trade agreement for close to 4 months before it was voted on here or in the other body. I am going to have to leave for a meeting to talk again about how we are going to see if we can find some common ground, but I do want to address one other point that my colleague made, and that deals with this question of middle-class wages. My colleague and I agree completely that middle-class people are hurting. There is no question about it. We have millions of middle- class people in this country walking an economic tightrope, balancing their food bill against their fuel bill and their fuel bill against their housing bill--no question about that. The difference of opinion here, between two Senators who enjoy each other's company, is that my colleague from Alabama says the principal problem is trade--that trade is the reason for this. Respectfully, the data from the Department of Commerce shows that export jobs--which is the focus of this bill and the focus of trade done right--pay better than do the nontrade jobs because they have a value-added kind of benefit to them.…”