Political Quotes

“Let me assure the House I have no intention of taking 4\1/2\ minutes to make the comments that I intend to make. I was at SelectUSA, which is a gathering of people that the administration has brought together from around the world who were businesspeople and about investments in America. I was there with a number of Members of the U.S. Senate, Senator Nelson and others. I got a chance at the lunch to sit next to a gentleman who has businesses in the United States--manufacturing businesses--and in South Africa and his home country in Asia and a number of other places. He was saying that, when he travels to America, even though he has got 3,000 employees here, it is almost impossible for him to get the kind of visas and to get back and forth post-9/11 that can make it an efficient business trip for him. It requires such advance planning and so on. I could imagine, in a negotiation, that there could be some consideration when there is a person who has got a multinational business and is employing Americans in Iowa or some other State about their entry and exit from our country. In fact, he indicated that, in these other countries, he has such arrangements, just not in our own. I think that America has got to think about where it is on these issues. This is not the appropriate bill for this. This is a bill to determine the appropriation levels that we are going to fund in certain accounts. We are well off the tracks, and I hope that we vote this amendment down.…”