Ron Kind: “We're less than 4 percent of the world population, and we can no sooner turn ourselves into a fortress of solitude and…”

“We're less than 4 percent of the world population, and we can no sooner turn ourselves into a fortress of solitude and hope to maintain economic progress and opportunity in our own country. But the Democrats in Congress haven't been dealing with trade in a vacuum. We've been promoting this innovation agenda for some time. We have had legislation on the floor to try to enhance further fields of study in those crucial fields of math, science, engineering, technology, those fields that will enable our students and workers to be innovative and creative and develop into high-paying jobs that we hope to see here in the United States. We've been moving that legislation forward, working with our Senate counterparts. We're trying to increase research investment in the National Institutes of Health, for instance, so we can be at the cutting edge of medical and scientific breakthroughs. All this is interwoven into the economic agenda the Democrats have been standing for that the New Democratic Coalition has been a big part of in helping to formulate that agenda. Our concern is there's a lot of economic anxiety throughout the country, and they want to know what their role is going to be in this global marketplace. Perhaps more importantly, they want to know what kind of future their children have to look forward to.”