Political Quotes

“first of all, I want my friend and colleague, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan), to know that his courage and dedication tonight are the greatest tribute he could pay to his father, and I am honored to be on the floor with him. My colleagues, this Congress had an idea that we would pass a steel quota bill and that would be our response, and we passed it with a veto-proof measure. But the same people on both sides of the aisle who had sold GATT to us back in 1994 in a lame duck session said it is not GATT compliant, that we could not do it, and they killed it. Now some of the same forces are coming out and saying we cannot do this either. Well, Mr. Speaker, our steel companies are having to compete with companies that are subsidized by foreign governments. So we want to tie both hands behind the backs of our steel industry, and we say go out and compete in the world. This is not the first time, my colleagues, that we have done subsidies. We have heard about it before. But the reality is that our basic industry needs our help. And if we let the steel industry go down, next it will be aerospace, then auto manufacturing, bridge building, construction, and on and on. We have to stand up for these workers and the 11,000 who have already lost their jobs.”