Fast Track and Marriage Equality

Floor Speech

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Mr. NORCROSS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition of what is being called fast-track authority.

The legislation would allow a deal, a deal that, regardless of its impact on American jobs, would go into effect with just a simple up-or-down vote. We have no other avenue for input, and I think we are seriously misguided. The best indication of that is history, where we have been.

I started my career as an electrician, working up and down the Delaware River, in different plants that manufactured products for not only the United States, but around the world. Now, I go through what is now my congressional district, and I can see the empty boxes which used to be manufacturing, which used to put men and women to work.

Since NAFTA, I have been involved in trying to educate the people of not only my area, but, certainly, of the rest of the country, that this is seriously misguided and that the rhetoric that we heard at the time ended up being the exact opposite.

In my district alone, there have been 19,500 jobs lost and 59 employers who are no longer there. Those empty buildings that we used to call home, that used to pay for college educations, those are dreams erased. I was sent to Congress to create a climate for jobs here in America, and that is my focus. That is why I am so passionate about this issue.

When we look around the country, we are just now coming out of the worst economic times since I have been alive--the worst times. Now, what we are seeing and what we are being asked to do is to grant authority to take those jobs--the ones that will take care of our families--and ship them overseas.

They did it before, and it is going to happen again. Our job is to help create jobs here in America for all of the people, not just for the few who make and own the companies.

I urge my colleagues in the strongest way I can to say ``no'' to fast track and to say ``yes'' to American jobs.

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