Bob Wise: “Exactly. There were to be several hundred thousand jobs, good-paying jobs, to be created, was the quote. We have not…”

“Exactly. There were to be several hundred thousand jobs, good-paying jobs, to be created, was the quote. We have not seen those jobs. We have an economy happily that has been growing, but at a minimalist rate, 2.3, 2.5 percent. That sustains about the level of unemployment, the current level of employment, better said, but it is not a growth economy. It is not an economy that helps. The gentleman from Michigan was talking about this a little earlier, it is not an economy that sustains and helps middle-income people truly stay middle income and get ahead. So that is my concern as well. Now I hear talk of a whole new wave of free-trade agreements that may be coming to this Congress. Whether you call it fast track, whether it is with Chile, whether with Mercosur, whether with some of the other countries, and we have the North American-Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, Southern Hemisphere Area Free- Trade Agreement, that turns into SHAFTA, and I think that is exactly what we are looking at if we keep going down this path. I happen to believe that there are a number of areas we can negotiate true free-trade agreements. But I think we have to take into context, into consideration, the economic situations of the countries involved, the political situations; and the differentials: the labor differentials, the economic differentials, the environmental differentials, the health and safety standards.”