[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13389]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     COLOMBIA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT

  (Mr. PITTS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PITTS. Mr. Speaker, as the American people ask where are the 
jobs, the President's economic advisers reply with weak statistics 
about the wasteful government stimulus program. All the while, we're 
losing billions of dollars to tariffs that could have been eliminated 
years ago.
  It has been 1,337 days since the U.S. and Colombia negotiated a free 
trade agreement. For over 3 years, the Democrat leadership in Congress 
has refused to consider the legislation to ratify that treaty. In that 
time, American businesses have paid an estimated $2.8 billion in 
tariffs. This is $2.8 billion that could have gone to good American 
jobs, and this number grows higher every day. You can see it on the 
Republican Ways and Means Committee Web site.
  We need to stop wasting our time, hoping that more government 
spending and borrowing will revive the economy. Instead, we need to 
unleash American businesses and entrepreneurs to expand into new 
markets. Passing the Colombia, South Korea, and Panama Free Trade 
Agreements would give real, tangible benefits to American workers and 
create jobs.

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