Political Quotes

“let me be very blunt. In my opinion, our current trade relations with China are an absolute disaster and are based on an unholy alliance between corporate America and the corrupt Communist leadership in China. As part of this trade agreement, corporate America gets the opportunity to invest tens of billions of dollars in China and to hire workers who are forced to slave away at wages as low as 20 cents an hour. And in the process, as corporate America invests in China, they are throwing out on the streets hundreds of thousands of American workers who used to make a living wage, who used to be able to join a union, who worked under some kinds of environmental protection. What an outrage, that corporate America has decided that it is better to pay Chinese workers starvation wages, have their government arrest those people if they form a union, and allow corporate America to destroy their environment. Mr. Speaker, today is a day to stand up for living wages in this country. Not only are we seeing a huge loss of manufacturing jobs because of our trade policy with China, what we are seeing is wages being forced down. How is an American worker supposed to make a living wage competing against somebody who makes 20 cents an hour? The result is that today, millions of American workers are working longer hours for lower wages than was the case 20 years ago. High school graduates in America no longer get manufacturing jobs at decent wages.”