Political Quotes

“I rise in strong opposition to the fast- track bill the Finance Committee approved last night, and that I think will be on the floor next week or the following week, on the Trans- Pacific Partnership. I think the most important aspect of this debate is that what we are discussing with the TPP is not a new concept. It is not as though somebody came and said, I have a great idea; let's try this trade agreement, and it is going to be really good for the American worker and the American middle class and the American people. The truth is that we have seen this movie time and time and time again. Let me tell my colleagues that the ending of this movie is not very good. It is a pretty bad ending. I think most Americans understand that our past trade agreements have failed our American workers and have led to the loss of millions of decent-paying jobs. What I simply don't understand--if we were going forward in the first place, with a new idea, maybe we should give it a shot. But when we went forward with NAFTA, when we went forward with CAFTA, when we went forward with Normal Permanent Trade Relations and there were all of these folks telling us how great these agreements were going to be and it turned out that virtually everything they said was inaccurate--not true--why in God's Name would we go forward with another trade agreement which is, in fact, larger than previous trade agreements? Let me give an example of what I mean.…”