Mark Gordon: “today's debate is a classic example of the cliche that everything has been said, it is just everyone has not had a…”

“today's debate is a classic example of the cliche that everything has been said, it is just everyone has not had a chance to say it. In that tradition, let me give my quick synopsis of how I view this debate, what it is about and what it is not about. It certainly is not about smoking. It certainly has nothing to do with reducing the size of Government. It has nothing to do with tobacco company products. What does it have to do with? Well, if the Durbin amendment passes, it has to do a lot with American jobs, the loss of American jobs. If the Durbin amendment passes, then there is going to be a lot of small tobacco farmers that are going to go out of business. Now, how does this affect the tobacco companies; fine with them, foreign tobacco is cheaper anyway. So their profit goes up. As a matter of fact, it is cheaper to produce cigarettes offshore, so let us just go offshore and produce them and you save even more money. There are more American jobs that go offshore. Let us make no mistake about this debate today. It has nothing to do with smoking. It has nothing to do with reducing the size of Government. It has to do with jobs, American jobs. A vote for the Durbin amendment means shipping American farming jobs overseas, American manufacturing jobs overseas. A vote against the amendment means keeping those jobs here in America. That is what this debate is all about.”