[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 127 (Tuesday, September 16, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H8228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE HEMORRHAGE OF MANUFACTURING JOBS
(Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the President appeared in Michigan yesterday
but failed to address the hemorrhage of jobs that continues to plague
Michigan and Ohio and indeed our entire country, good jobs in the
manufacturing sector, which is where our economy has made the most
productivity gains; Ohio losing over 180,000 jobs and Michigan 182,000
jobs, manufacturing jobs since he took office.
Our part of the country is really hurting, and all the President can
propose is an assistant secretary in the Department of Commerce. What
we need, Mr. Speaker, is a trade policy that puts people first, not the
profits of multinational corporations first. We need to turn the U.S.
Trade Representative's office upside down and clean it out and start
striking trade agreements that create jobs and income in America again
and do not create enemies for America abroad. NAFTA is not working.
China PNTR is not working. And now the Bush administration wants to
expand NAFTA to Central America and the rest of the hemisphere calling
it CAFTA and FTAA.
Mr. Speaker, we need to export products, not jobs, and we need a
trade policy that works for working Americans. I wish President Bush
had talked about that in Monroe, Michigan yesterday.
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