Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, fast track essentially extends our current trade policies. And why in God's name would we want to do that when our current trade policy is an absolute disaster that has cost this country millions of decent-paying jobs and has resulted in the pushing down of wages from one end of America to the other? The facts are clear. They are not disputable. When we have a failed policy, why do we want to extend it? I hear some people talking about how fast track and trade policies have created new jobs. What world are they living in? The reality is today, nobody disputes it, we have a $346 billion trade deficit, record-breaking. No one disputes that between 1994 and 2000, the United States lost more than 3 million decent-paying manufacturing jobs due to our trade policies. In 2001, manufacturing lost 1.3 million jobs. Over the past 4 years, this is incredible, our Nation has lost 10 percent, 10 percent of our manufacturing base. Then people come up here and they say, let us continue; let us extend this absurd and failed policy. When will they catch on, when there are no more manufacturing jobs in America? When all of our kids are flipping hamburgers? Everybody knows the truth, and the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) said it. We all know it. When we go to a department store and buy a product, where is that product manufactured? We all know it.”