Dear Editor,
As a graduate student with friends out of work, I hear gloomy reports every day about our stagnant 8 percent unemployment rate, and the crucial need for jobs and economic growth.
I recently learned that Peter Roskam, a Congressman running for reelection in the Sixth Congressional District, has been instrumental in passing several free trade agreements that have and will continue to help businesses here and across the country. Peter Roskam has traveled to three countries in support of pro-export free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia, and played a leading role in building support for them in Washington, which led to them being signed into law last October.
Roskam understands that opening trade markets around the world is a proven and effective method for creating job growth back in the United States. Expanding trade opportunities, and reducing tariffs allows more U.S. exporters to enter International markets, thus promoting job creation and economic independence in the U.S. in sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, and education.
Roskam has a track record of supporting bipartisan initiatives that propose consistent, coherent solutions to our economic problems, and that invest in jobs for our future. That kind of work seems to me like government at its best. And I think it will help me, and my friends in need of work, to enter or remain in the workforce, rather than on the rolls of the unemployed!
Sincerely,
Charis Bastian
Downers Grove
