Political Quotes

“I would like to begin by responding to Mr. Shaw's comments. None of the modest steps he cited respond to the fact that we have an $800 billion trade deficit and an Administration with a trade policy that will do nothing but make it worse. This agreement with a small but strategically important country like Oman ought to have been approved today unanimously, and it could have been. But there is a very big problem, and that problem is not in Oman on the other side of the world; it is on Pennsylvania, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, to be more precise. The problem is that just as this Administration has shown consistent disdain for the rights and needs of workers in America, just as it has shown consistent disdain for environmental protection--ready to manipulate science whenever it needs to for political purposes to justify degradation of our air, our water, and our other environmental resources--today it shows continued disdain for the environment and for workers in our international trade agreements. What we need is a modern, bipartisan trade policy that recognizes that you cannot measure how good your trade policy is based solely on how many dollars in goods transverse international borders. You have to consider the impact of that trade on the workers that produce the goods and on the environment that surrounds them. {time} 1330 During the consideration of this bill in the Ways and Means Committee, we offered very modest amendments to try to address these concerns.…”