 In many ways, what is happening here in Reading and what has happened over the last several decades is kind of a metaphor for what's happening all over this country. And what that is about is we have seen a city which once had thousands of excellent paying jobs lose those jobs because of disastrous trade policies. We have seen companies like Lucent Technologies, Dana Corporation, Ludens Glidden, and Baldwin Hardware are just a few of the major corporations that shut down manufacturing plants in Reading and moved overseas destroying thousands of decent paying jobs. And what happens when good jobs leave poverty increases and what we have seen is since 1990 the poverty rate in Reading has more than doubled going from 19% to 40%. Today in the richest country in the history of the world, Reading and Allentown have two of the most financially troubled school districts in the entire nation. That is unacceptable. That has got to change. Now way back when I first got elected to Congress in 1990, shortly after that I was on the picket lines in opposition to NAFTA because I knew then that these trade agreements were written by corporate America for one sole purpose. And that was to make sure that companies did not have to pay workers in Pennsylvania or in Vermont a living wage. What they wanted to do and what they accomplished was to shut down tens of thousands of manufacturing plants all over this country, move to low wage countries, and then bring their products back here in the United States of America. As a result of these trade agreements, we have lost millions of decent paying jobs that has got to end. A trade policy which protects the interest of the American worker, not just the CEOs of multinational corporations.