Political Quotes

“I rise to address the same issue Senator Brown raised, the issue of trade, and I thank him and commend him for not only his leadership on this issue for many years, his time in the U.S. House of Representatives and now in the Senate for the last 8 years, but especially his work and his focus on this issue most recently because we are moving into a period now of great debate about trade promotion authority and trade agreements that will be debated here in the Senate and throughout the country. So I commend him for that. What Senator Brown spoke to was a basic economic insecurity that so many Americans feel. It didn't just arise in the last couple of years. This is a long-standing problem and a long-standing threat to people's economic insecurity. Trade agreements play a role in it. I spoke the last time when the Senator and I were here about the concerns I had about these trade agreements, but also the specific concern about jobs or the adverse impact on jobs since the North American Free Trade Agreement and then subsequent trade agreements in the intervening years. Today I rise to talk about a related but very urgent issue, and that is the issue of wages. Senator Brown spoke to this as well. We know that middle-class spending power is the main driver of our economic growth and the foundation of the American dream.…”