Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1314, Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act, and Providing for Consideration of the Senate Amendments to H.R. 644, Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, the rule we are considering today represents everything for me that is wrong with politics. We are currently debating the most important package of trade legislation in a generation; yet, despite how critical this issue is to American jobs, this rule does not allow any amendments.

Currency manipulation, the mother of all trade barriers, has cost this country as many as 5 million jobs. A bipartisan group of 20 Members--10 Republicans, 10 Democrats--proposed an amendment to address this, and it is vital that Congress debate and vote on how to address currency manipulation as we set U.S. trade policy for the next decade.

With nothing but the deepest of respect for the chair of the Rules Committee, I want to give you the facts about the Korean free trade agreement. The reality is that after it passed, we increased exports to Korea from 14,000 to 34,000.

By comparison, Korea exported 800,000 to the U.S. before the trade agreement and now exports 1.3 million. We increased our exports to Korea by 20,000, and they have increased their exports to this country by 461,000.

Toyota made more money last year in currency manipulation in this country than Ford Motor Company did in its worldwide operations.

The American people deserve a full and open debate on trade policy, not procedural gimmicks and political games that shut out amendments and avoid the tough questions.

Let's defeat this rule and have a real debate on the issues that the working men and women of this country have sent us here to consider and that are so critical to the livelihood and the backbone of this American economy. American jobs are at stake.

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