The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“THE DEFICIT AND JOBS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2398-H2404 on April 6, 2011.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE DEFICIT AND JOBS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, we intend tonight to talk about the deficit, solutions to the deficit, where it came from and what can be done about it in the context of creating jobs here in America. But before we get into that, we just heard a whole hour of talk that really is based upon a fallacious foundation, that is, it is just not correct.
Last year in 2010, it was the Republican Senators that blocked every attempt to pass legislation by threatening a veto and denying the 60 votes that were necessary. So when it came time to do a budget, it was impossible to put a budget through the Senate because of the Republican blockade in the use of the filibuster.
Similarly, when it came time to fund the government, to appropriate the money, the same thing happened. It was impossible to get the 60 votes out of the Senate because of the Republican blockade. So everything that we have heard over the last hour about the process that is now under way, the continuing resolutions, began with the blockade in the Senate by the Republicans as they continually threatened a filibuster. That's why we are where we are today.
Now, with regard to the funding of the military, let's understand that the Democrats have always consistently voted to fund the military when it was a straight up-or-down vote. However, in the CR, the first CR that did have funding for the military, it also had extraordinary cuts that would destroy 700,000 jobs in the last 6 months of this fiscal year--March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and October--700,000 jobs lost.
The Democrats said no way, no way are we going to throw 700,000 employed Americans out of work, and we rejected that. Put a clean CR for the funding of the military on, and you'll have a 100 percent vote. But when you cobble together the kinds of foolish cuts, unwarranted cuts, 700,000 lost jobs, and then attach to it the military and expect support, you won't get it.
The Democrats want this government funded, and we fought for more than a year and a half to get the government funded. We were blocked along the way. And now, as the Republicans put out these pieces of legislation, the continuing resolution, and attach to it totally unacceptable language and unacceptable cuts, to the American people, not to the Democrats, but to the American people, then we find this gridlock. What we want to do really is talk about jobs.
Joining me tonight are two wonderful legislators. One is imported from Detroit, and another one from the manufacturing capital of the world.
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I want to start with an understanding of why we are where we are. I know my colleagues will help me on this.
First of all, the Democrats have been about creating jobs, from the stimulus to today. The GOP majority has been in power for 14 weeks. Zero, no, nada, nothing to create jobs. Not one jobs bill. In fact, the only bill that they have put on that has anything to do with jobs is one that destroys 700,000 jobs. So keep this in mind, American public. Fourteen weeks of GOP leadership in the House and not one piece of legislation that would create a job putting Americans to work this year and next year. That's the fact.
Now, another fact: Where did the deficit come from? In order to understand where we are, we need to know where we've been. Here is what the deficit is all about. Beginning with Ronald Reagan, the budget was not balanced. Ronald Reagan at the end of his term left for the American public a $1.4 trillion deficit in the years ahead. At the end of each year and, therefore, at the end of a President's term, the Congressional Budget Office makes an estimate of what is going to happen over the next 5 to 10 years. At the end of Ronald Reagan's term, they said there would be a $1.4 trillion deficit going forward.
George Walker Bush followed Reagan; and at the end of his administration, the estimate by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office was that there would be a $3.3 trillion deficit going forward. That's the numbers provided by the Congressional Budget Office, nonpartisan group.
Bill Clinton came to office, established the pay-for program, established the balanced budget program; and at the end of his administration, it was projected going forward that there would be a
$5.6 trillion surplus, wiping out the American debt. That's what happened during the Clinton administration. So that in the years beyond the Clinton administration, had the same policies gone forward, the American debt would have been wiped out.
However, another gentleman was elected, George W. Bush. In his first year in office, the Bush tax cuts went into effect, the Afghanistan war started, and the deficit began to grow once again. So that in his second year, the second Bush tax cuts were added and the Iraq war was started. Never before in America's history has a war been under way that was not paid for with tax increases. Instead, the Republicans and George W. Bush decided that they would start not one war, but two wars, and pay for it with borrowed money. The fourth piece was the unpaid-for Medicare drug benefit which didn't even require that the Federal Government force the insurance companies to compete for drugs.
The result was at the end--oh, did I forget the Great Recession? I did. You add the Great Recession to it, so at the end of the George W. Bush administration, the projection from the Congressional Budget Office was that the deficit would grow by an additional $11.5 trillion.
The George W. Bush Republican period created the Great Recession, two wars unpaid for, a major increase in the Medicare program, and the result, the Great Recession and the great deficit. This is what Obama faced the day he came into office, the greatest recession since the Great Depression and an $11.5 trillion deficit going forward. Those are the facts. That's where we started this.
Now, what are we going to do about this problem? The President has put forth a budget that would, in 8 years, significantly reduce the deficit so that it wouldn't grow and allow us to pay the interest, not removing it, not paying it all off--neither do the Republican proposals--but it would put us in a position where it would not grow. It takes time to solve the huge deficit problem that George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Bush, Sr. put us into. We can do it. But we cannot do it unless we grow this economy. It's about growing the economy and creating jobs that we would now like to talk about.
I am going to turn now to my colleague from Ohio, Betty Sutton, who has been working on the issue of putting Americans to work for a long, long time. Please share with us where you are now with this proposal that you are putting forward.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman. I thank you for your leadership. You gave us a little bit of background that I think is really, really important when we talk about where this deficit came from and how it came to be. I would just add a couple of other points that I think are significant.
At the end of last year, we will remember that the same people who are now cutting indiscriminately, cuts aimed at seniors, cuts aimed at middle class Americans, cuts aimed at Head Start, low-income housing, heating assistance, Community Development Block Grants that add to economic activities in our communities, those same folks, some of them, were over there fighting to make sure that we had super tax cuts for billionaires that were also going to add exponentially to the deficit.
Then they turn around and say, hey, we've got this horrible deficit, and so now everyone has to sacrifice. But whenever the American people hear the words, ``Everyone needs to sacrifice,'' chances are if you're in the 95 percent of the population that controls very little of the wealth in this country, they mean you. They don't mean that top 5 percent that controls most of the wealth in this country. They are all about protecting what they have and grabbing more power.
It's very interesting when we talk about where the policies coming out of the Republican House majority are these days, because all of the cuts seem to be targeted at the people back in the district where I live, hardworking, salt-of-the-Earth constituents whom I am so honored to serve.
Your point is well taken and very sad, that the one bill that they put out there--I mean, hey, you don't have to take our word for it--the bill that they put out there puts 700,000 jobs, more than at risk, it's been determined by their own Republican analysts that it would cost us 700,000 jobs. Frankly, our economic recovery, which is so fragile, is under threat.
A group of 300 economists, including two Nobel laureates, wrote a letter warning that the shortsighted budget cuts to, quote, human capital, our infrastructure and the next generation of scientific and technological advances would threaten future economic competitiveness as well as the current recovery.
So the path that the Republicans are on, and it's funny because we just saw the new budget proposal unveiled and they called it a path to prosperity. I think that the better name is a path to poverty. At any rate, the path that they are on is not a good one.
We know that the answer to what ails our economy is we need to put the American people back to work. We need to have jobs that will create opportunities for the people that we are so honored to represent, that will keep our communities running, will have the revenue that we need to pay for those services, those firefighters, those teachers, those police officers, those nurses, those public servants that make our world turn.
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So everyone at all levels of government, regardless of party, should be focused on priority one--getting Americans back to work. That's where we come in with what we need to be focused on, which is: How do we make it in America? Manufacturing matters.
So we are working in this House, as you know, Congressman Garamendi, to make sure we put forth an agenda on the Democratic side of the aisle, and we hope that our Republican colleagues will stop being deflected and will start focusing on what will help the people we serve, which would be focusing on these jobs, giving people opportunity, and creating real value by making things in this country. Not only will we make the products; we will then give a chance to the American people to make it in America, and America will make it again.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for laying out the thematics as well as the past history.
Our theme in the Democratic Caucus here in the House is one of making it in America--once again, going into Target, going down to the local automobile dealership, and finding products that are made in America. The great strength of America, historically for the last 150 years, has been its manufacturing strength, but we need to understand that, in the last decade, we have seen the hollowing out of the American manufacturing industry.
In 1999, there were 17,383,000 Americans working in manufacturing. In the decade that followed, more than 6 million of those jobs were lost, and we saw the hollowing out of American manufacturing. That's the strength. It also happens to be the middle class. So our theme is
``make it in America.'' As you say, if America is going to make it, we must, once again, make it in America. Manufacturing matters.
Let me put up here on the board why it matters to the American public.
What has happened in the last decade has been a skewing of the economy, the great unshared prosperity of America. If we look at the bottom fifth of the population, these are the poor. They've seen a $200 annual increase in their well-being. For the next fifth, 20 to 40 percent, they've seen just under $10,000. As you go up, if you look at the top 10 percent, $300,000. If you look at the top 1 percent of Americans, what has happened with them? Their wealth has grown by over
$5,978,870.
So what has happened as a result of the policies of the Bush administration is a push to the wealthy and the clampdown of the working class in America. The middle class in America is losing the race to wealth. It is losing it to the top 1 percent.
Let me put this another way.
There are, perhaps, some people you might recognize at the bottom, the poorest fifth, the folks who work for Wal-Mart. Eleven percent of the wealth went to them. For the second poorest--these are the teachers--it's the same thing. There was very little growth in their income. As you get to the millionaires and billionaires, the Donald Trumps of the world, they have seen a 256 percent--a 256 percent--
increase in their wealth. At the bottom, an 11 percent. For the teachers, an 18, 20 percent. For manufacturing, maybe a 32 percent. Here is where the money is: It's with the super wealthy. They have seen a 256 percent.
Take a close look, America. Take a close look at what was proposed yesterday by the Republican caucus:
Yesterday, the Republican caucus proposed to take this skewing of wealth, the unshared prosperity, and push even more of it to the super wealthy of America. It is unconscionable, but that's what they've proposed to do, and they're going to do it with tax breaks for the wealthy, continuing on, indefinitely, increasing the deficit by $1 trillion--a $1 trillion increase--because they want even more wealth to go to the super wealthy.
At the same time, they're cutting the benefits that the working men and women rely upon. What are those benefits? Well, how about employment opportunities? How about educational opportunities? All of those are cut, and they're taking money out of the economy so that 700,000 men and women will lose their jobs this year, in the next 9 months. That's the Republican agenda.
For those who are not working, the seniors of America, the Republicans are proposing to end Medicare as we know it. It will be the privatization of Medicare, giving every senior in this Nation an
$11,000 voucher so that they can then go and negotiate with the rapacious greed of the health insurance companies. If you want to live to be 65 and finally have a health insurance policy that you can count on, don't look to the Republicans, because they intend to terminate Medicare as we know it and turn over the well-being--the health and, indeed, the life of every senior--to the vagrancies, to the rapacious profit orientation of the health insurance industry. That's what's going to happen if the Republicans get their way. We'll do everything we can to stop it, and we will also do everything we can to build the American middle class.
Ms. SUTTON. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. GARAMENDI. I would be delighted to.
Ms. SUTTON. In addition to that, at the same time they're cutting Medicare and changing it and removing the guarantee that seniors have known, which is that they're going to have access to that care when they need it, isn't it also true that they're continuing to protect those subsidies to big oil companies, those billions of dollars in subsidies, and are continuing to protect tax breaks that ship those jobs overseas, which has led, in large part, to the decline of American manufacturing?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Precisely so.
Look at their budget proposal. Their budget proposal says that the oil companies in the last 10 years have earned a profit of $947 billion. That would be $53 billion less than $1 trillion in profits, nearly $1 trillion in profits. Yet our Republican colleagues say they need to continue to be subsidized by the American taxpayers. Hello? What's that all about? Do you want to balance the budget? Remove those subsidies from the oil companies, and let them pay taxes. Why should we be subsidizing the wealthiest industry in the world, the oil industry? That's what they want to do--and you talk about tax breaks. Good heavens.
I want to turn now to our colleague from the great City of Detroit. We loved that advertisement in the Super Bowl. We now call Hansen Clarke the ``imported from Detroit Representative.''
Please share with us your thoughts here.
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Thank you, the great gentleman from California, Congressman Garamendi.
You're right. I was born and raised in Detroit, and am very proud of it--imported from Detroit, as you say.
One reason why U.S. manufacturing has been so innovative is that we use the best research. As a matter of fact, U.S. manufacturing performs half of the research and development in the United States. It has been fantastic, and let me give you an example.
In Detroit, which is the district that I represent, General Motors Corporation is now manufacturing one of the best electric-powered vehicles around, the Chevy Volt. The cost of the Chevy Volt has dropped. It's very affordable now, which is, in large part, because of the Department of Energy's investment into research and development in the lithium-ion battery. The cost of that battery has now dropped down to just $8,000 apiece.
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So this car is not only a great car, saving gas, it's a good riding vehicle, but also it will be affordable.
But here's the problem: The problem is that many in the majority right now want to cut back on research and development that's going to be so essential for us not only to build the best products to be sold here, but also so that we can compete overseas. What's very disturbing is that, for the first time since 2008, the U.S. level of investment in clean energy technology has now dropped from first place in the world. We used to be number one in the world in clean energy technology research until recently. We have fallen now to number three, number three behind China and Germany. That's not acceptable.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Would the gentleman yield for a moment?
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. I will yield to the gentleman.
Mr. GARAMENDI. In the Republican continuing resolution, H.R. 1, they reduce the research budget for energy research here in America, cutting out vital research at the Department of Energy, at the laboratories across this Nation. And what are they thinking?
Mr. CLARKE of Michigan. Well, you're right, this makes no sense at all. And I'll tell you what's disturbing is that the British National Science Academy predicted that if we go on this path that we're going on right now--which we're going to ask the American people to back us up because we've got to put more research and development dollars into building these great manufacturing products. But if we don't do that, if we don't change, China could overtake us in scientific output in just a couple of years. That's not acceptable. We want to make sure that the best products are imported from Detroit, not from China.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you so very much.
And how correct you are in laying out this strategy of how we can move the American manufacturing industry: Education, a well-educated workforce; research on fundamental issues like energy systems, batteries, transportation; and then making those things in America, importing from Detroit to American consumers and selling around the world. However, when the Republicans put together a proposal such as H.R. 1--their continuing resolution that would cut 700,000 jobs out--it also cut out the research budget for energy research, for battery research, for transportation research, and in addition to that, research for health. The National Institutes of Health budget was decimated. That's not good public policy. We need to make these financial investments. And if the Democratic strategy of making it in America is carried forward, Detroit will prosper and America will prosper.
Another part of our country in trouble for manufacturing, but a great manufacturing center of America, is Illinois. Our Representative from that great State is here to join us, Jan Schakowsky.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I am so happy to join you. And I thank you for coming down to the floor each week and making the point that we have choices in the United States of America.
We can put our people back to work. We can reduce our debt and our deficit, but we don't have to do it on the backs of middle class Americans, and we certainly don't have to do it on the backs of our elderly. That's exactly what the budget proposal by our Republican Budget Chairman Paul Ryan says. He said, look, the country is broke. We've got to just show courage and we've got to cut that deficit--we agree with that--and the way that we think we ought to do it is by ending Medicare as we know it, by abolishing Medicare. Instead of that guaranteed benefit that all older Americans can aspire to now, can get when they're 65 years old, that persons with disabilities would get, they know that it's there--and I cannot imagine that there is not every single Member of this House, Republican or Democrat, where people come in and say, I hope I can make it until I'm 65 and get on Medicare because I can't get insurance, and even if I could, I can't afford it right now or I have a preexisting condition. He wants to do it on the backs of senior citizens.
It's been said many times tonight that 700,000 jobs would be lost if H.R. 1--the top priority of the Republicans--were to pass, that the cuts that it would make, instead of spurring on jobs, creating jobs, putting the 15 million people that want to pay taxes--that's all they want is to go back to work and actually pay taxes, that that would be their dream come true, and it would also cut our deficit. But you know what the American people are thinking? They're thinking, We aren't broke--maybe we are, but not everyone is broke in America.
This is a sign that my staff made before I introduced a bill with an idea supported by 81 percent of Americans that it is time for millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share; 81 percent of Americans. That means it's not just Democrats and it's not just Republicans. It's Independents, and I believe that it's Tea Party people, too. They know that they are not getting a fair shake and that the millionaires are.
Did you explain the chart?
Mr. GARAMENDI. Go ahead.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, what it says is that from 1979, at that end, to 2005, this is the growth in income over certain income categories. And you can see way down at the end there is a little bracket--even if you can't, you get the idea. There is a little sign down there that says that the bottom 20 percent of Americans over that period, almost 30 years, their income increased $200.
Let's go to the other end. The top 0.1 percent of Americans, their average income increased, actually increased, over $6 million. Their average income right now is $27 million. Get this: The bottom 90 percent of Americans--I was even shocked by this number--the average income is under $32,000 a year. Top 0.1 percent, $27 million; 90 percent of the rest of Americans, less than $32,000. This is not good for our economy and it is not good for our democracy.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Would you yield for a moment?
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Yes.
Mr. GARAMENDI. The Republican budget proposal put out yesterday calls for a tax decrease for that 0.1 percent from 35 percent to 25 percent.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Just the people who need it, right? Just the people who need a tax break. Isn't that astonishing that they should actually pay less?
Mr. GARAMENDI. We're talking about super trickle-down theory here.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Yeah. Take it from Medicare and give them a tax break.
And, by the way, the top tax bracket in the United States of America right now starts at $375,000. So if you make $27 million or $375,000, you're still paying the same tax rate.
What I did was say, okay, let's make the taxes fairer. I said, starting at $1 million--that's earning in 1 year--45 percent tax rate. And it would ratchet up, $10 to $20 million, $20 to $100 million, $100 million to $1 billion, and then a $1 billion tax bracket. And you know what? There are Americans who have made $1 billion last year. The top 20 hedge fund managers, an average of over $1 billion a year. One guy made over $5 billion in 1 year. I'm saying those billionaires, that top tax bracket, 49 percent taxes. And guess what? That is lower than the tax rate in all the Reagan years. I'm under Ronald Reagan's highest tax bracket. It's fair.
This is not about punishment. It's not about revenge. It's certainly not about jealousy. It is about fairness in our tax system. And we would have plenty of money here. We wouldn't have to cut Medicare, of course we wouldn't. We wouldn't have to cut Medicaid, the poorest people off their health care. We wouldn't have to threaten seniors with cuts in Social Security benefits. And we could fund those job training programs to put people back to work. We could even fund infrastructure programs that put people on the job, or green energy programs that make America a leader in the world. We could do all those things. We are not broke as a people.
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So my Fairness in Taxation Act, I hope people will sign on as cosponsors. Eighty-one percent of Americans think it's a good idea. We have to have the courage to follow--listen to people out there, and follow
Mr. GARAMENDI. Our Republican colleagues have consistently said we ought to listen. And apparently all that we know about tax policy, there's little or no support for reducing the taxes on the super wealthy but rather they go the other way. And we're wondering what they're thinking over on the other side of the aisle as they continue to skew to create the unshared prosperity by even reducing further the taxes on the super wealthy.
Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. One of the things that they say, that Paul Ryan says, We all have to sacrifice. Shared sacrifice. I believe in that. I think that's a good idea. But some people have been sacrificing for a long time.
If you drew another line starting at the bottom left and going to the top right of productivity increases in the United States, that line would shoot way up because we have the most productive workers in the world. Productivity has soared. And yet where have the benefits gone for our more productive workers? Right here. And it has been deliberate, and it's been based on policies that have passed in the Congress, a partnership between government that's been hand-in-hand with the wealthiest Americans. And the rest of America--and you know what, the other thing is if you started up here and tracked union membership, you would find that line going straight down.
When workers, as 62 percent of Americans agree is a good thing, have collective bargaining, they're able to help raise the middle class instead of having a disappearing middle class, which is what's happening now.
Mr. GARAMENDI. And yet we're seeing across this Nation a Republican attack on unions claiming that unions are bad. But the great history of this Nation is that the union movement, collective bargaining over these many, many decades did in fact create the middle class. And so that in the 1960s was the period of time when the middle class of America was at its peak. It had the greatest distribution of wealth. The greatest share of the income went to the middle class. It was also the time when the union movement was the strongest in America. Since that time through a variety of governmental policies, we have seen a decline in the union movement and a commensurate consistent decline in the middle class.
We're going to build the middle class. This is about making it in America. This is about rebuilding the middle class.
I want to now turn to our colleague from the great industrial--the once and future great industrial center of America, Ohio, and share with us--you've got some specific proposals that you've put forward. I'd like to talk about them. I know that our Congresslady from Illinois has, and I do, too, so we're going to talk about specific things that we're going to do to rebuild the middle class by making it in America.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman and I thank the gentlewoman for her making the case about the fundamental unfairness about what is going on with the proposals coming from the other side of the aisle.
And I think that the point that the gentleman just made about the union movement in this country, helping to build the middle class and frankly, leading us to a place where we had a strong middle class in this country--you know, it's that middle class that makes America so great, that people have a chance to aspire to that American dream.
And so when you stand on this floor or you come here as we do, and you see attack after attack on those middle class families--from attacks on prevailing wage payments that are just living wages that are going to those folks who work in our trades. We see those attacks come up over and over again at the same time that those on the other side of the aisle are protecting that huge income disparity, it's really, really hard to take, I know for us over here, and it's hard for the people who I represent who work hard for a living and are just looking for a chance to take care of their families and make their way.
We also see those attacks on collective bargaining to silence workers, to take away rights to even have a voice at the table, to be part of the solution, which they have been and will continue to be.
You know, those power grabs, those attempts to disempower ordinary Americans, we have to fight against. There is a better way, and this Make It in America agenda offers us that better way.
Manufacturing, we all know, is a multiplier in terms of jobs. We know that for every manufacturing job, it has a multiplier effect of four more jobs. And in some industries, the auto industries, it's as high as 10 additional jobs.
We know that where people manufacture, if we manufacture in America, we do research and development in America. We maintain our capacity to be strong as a Nation--both economically as well as in our sense of national security. What happens if we can't make it in America?
So here we are. We have a number of proposals, we know that we need a national manufacturing strategy in this country. Democrats are committed to making sure that we have one.
Another area that we need to work on that I think the American people--honestly I think that they expect this, and I'm hoping that our friends across the aisle will see fit to join us in the effort to make sure that when taxpayer money is used to build our infrastructure, which in and of itself puts people to work, we will use that taxpayer money to buy American iron and steel and manufactured goods and get that multiplier effect as we build our streets and our roads and our bridges and our sewer systems and our water systems and our alternative energy products.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Could you just yield for a moment?
Ms. SUTTON. I will yield to the gentleman.
Mr. GARAMENDI. There's a piece of legislation that someone introduced that's called Don't Let American Jobs Go Down the Drain. Do you know who that was who introduced that piece of legislation?
Ms. SUTTON. Absolutely. I introduced that legislation.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I thought you did.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman for bringing it up. It is called Keep American Jobs from Going Down the Drain Act. And what it says is very simple. It says that as we do what we need to do in this country to rebuild our infrastructure, our water and sewer systems, that we will make sure we do it using American iron and steel and manufactured goods because that puts the American people back to work.
Other countries have similar procurement policies, and it's way past time that this country also do what it can to keep these jobs right here in Ohio, right here in America.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I love the title, but even more so, I love the purpose of your legislation. Using our tax dollars to build the infrastructure, the water, the sanitation systems that every city, every community needs, and using that money to buy American-made pumps and pipes and fittings and valves and all of the rest of the things that go into those kinds of systems.
It's not the only place where American taxpayers' money can be used.
Let me give you a couple of examples, and these are my pieces of my legislation that deal with a similar theme.
We all pay gasoline tax and a diesel tax--18\1/2\ cents on the Federal side and 25 cents for diesel on the Federal side. Where does that money go? It goes to build our streets, highways, and buy our buses and trains.
We need a firm policy that says if it is American taxpayer money, it's going to be used to buy American-made buses, trains, American-made steel, concrete. We need to use our tax money to build the American economy so that we are making those things in America.
I'm going to give you the poster child for the wrong policy. State of California going to rebuild the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, a multibillion dollar project. Bids went out. An American contractor came in with two bids. One bid was for steel in America, and the other bid was for steel made in China. The Chinese steel was 10 percent cheaper.
The State of California--wrong-headed, big mistake--went out and said, Well, we're going to save 10 percent. Turns out, the Chinese steel was defective, the welds were defective, the bridge was delayed. The 10 percent disappeared. The 10 percent was added. The American jobs were lost. Never ever, ever again should that happen in America. If it's American taxpayer money, then by golly, use American- made products. I love it. Don't let American jobs go down the drain. Make sure we are making it in America.
One more thing, and then I want to turn to our minority whip to talk about Make It in America.
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We also use American taxpayer dollars to build the solar systems and the wind turbine systems in America. Are they made in America? They ought to be. There are American manufacturers that make wind turbines and make solar. Once again, our taxpayer money. Is it going to be used to buy solar panels from China, wind turbines from Europe, or is it going to be used to buy American-made wind turbines and American-made solar panels? We must pass legislation, and it ought to be Democrat and Republican alike, that says finally it's going to be American made. We are going to make it in America so that Americans can make it.
Let me now turn to Steny Hoyer, our esteemed leader, the whip of the Democratic caucus. Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Garamendi, I thank you not only for your yielding, but more importantly for the extraordinary time you have invested in educating all of the Members of this House on both sides of the aisle in what can truly be perceived I think as an absolutely nonpartisan, bipartisan, pro-American agenda that says we ought to make it in America. And if we do, we are going to make it in America. We're going to succeed in America.
You've got our logo up there, Manufacturing Matters. I want to congratulate you, and I want to congratulate Ms. Sutton from Ohio, who has been such an extraordinary advocate. Her legislation in many respects took the automobile industry and put it back on track. That was an action that saved literally hundreds of thousands of jobs. Thousands of jobs in the automobile industry, but all the jobs that are related to the automobile industry. And I congratulate Betty Sutton for the leadership she showed. That legislation of course was passed in a bipartisan fashion. Not a partisan divide on that issue.
Mr. Garamendi has been not only educating the Members of this House, but as the American public watches the proceedings in this House, educating them as well. I go all over America and talk to groups, and there is not a group that I have talked to, no matter how liberal, how conservative, whether it's a Democratic group, a nonpartisan group, anywhere in this country, and I have talked to a number of the heads of major corporations, and I have talked to a lot of heads of small corporations, 200, 300, 400 members, and all of them are appreciative of the fact that we have focused the Congress of the United States and the administration and America on the importance of making things in America.
Betty Sutton, as I walked on the floor, was talking about the kinds of jobs that we create in manufacturing, which have on average a 22 percent higher salary. That middle income, middle class workers, working Americans can have the kind of quality of life that they deserve. And when you see Ford bringing jobs back to America, you see Whirlpool bringing jobs back to America, you see other corporations bringing jobs back to America, why are they bringing them back to America? Because they are finding out that they get better quality and higher productivity.
The gentleman from California mentioned the steel in the bridge that's being built. We make the best steel in America. I was visiting the president of U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh. Extraordinary technology. And we are the most productive producer of steel now. We frankly in the fifties sort of rested on our laurels. And then in the sixties and seventies, the Japanese, the Koreans, and others built new plants and they overtook us in technology. But it wasn't because we couldn't compete; it was that we weren't competing.
What Make It In America says is American workers can compete with anybody in the world. And we are prepared to do so. And this Congress hopefully is going to give them the incentives and the tools to do that. So I wanted to come on the floor and join you, as I have in evenings past, to thank you, because I believe this agenda, if it's known to our Republican colleagues fully and our Democratic colleagues, but much more importantly to the American people, it's an agenda that I have found has the support of 8 to 9 of every Americans who shake their head and say, yes, that's the deal. I don't mean that the 1 or 10 percent are against it. It's just that about 85 percent say, yes, that's what we need to do. America can compete. America can be again the center of manufacturing and growth and the creation of jobs.
We know that we've lost some 8 million jobs over the last few years, 3 or 4 years. We know that Americans are struggling to find employment. Well, if we want to find employment for them we need to create jobs for them. We need to focus on creating jobs. I am hopeful that as we move on in the coming months that we will in fact start focusing on jobs, on job creation. We have created, as you know, 1.75 million new private sector jobs over the last 13 months. But that's not enough. It's progress, but it's not enough.
So I congratulate the gentleman and thank him for his leadership. And I thank Ms. Sutton for hers as well. Two giants in focusing on an agenda that we call Make It In America.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Your kind words are much appreciated. But you are very much a part of this. This logo itself and the theme Make It In America was one that you developed. And we appreciate that and value the leadership that you have put into this.
I want to turn back to our colleague from Ohio. We have about 7 minutes, I believe, and we are going to wrap this thing up. Mr. Hoyer, thank you very much. We really appreciate your work here.
Ms. Sutton, if you will carry on, I am going to find one more of these placards.
Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman.
You know, again, this Make It In America agenda, it really is something that we believe that whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, that everybody can embrace, and frankly, everybody needs to embrace. We saw what happened when we had our economy relying on the financial sector, where you had a few people moving money around. And it wasn't real value that was being created. When that bubble burst, we had a big problem. But when you engage in manufacturing, you take something of lesser value and you turn it into something of greater value. That is something that we can rely on.
So one of the things that we have to do is we have to have a national manufacturing strategy. And in that national manufacturing strategy, like on the agenda, the Make It In America agenda, we need to look at a number of things and how they all work together so that they will support U.S. manufacturing and U.S. workers.
Why do we need a manufacturing strategy? Well, it's kind of obvious, but I do think it's worth noting that others have national manufacturing strategies. So Germany has one, South Korea has one. In fact, every other industrialized nation has a network of currency, trade, tax, investment, innovation, and skills policies that promote their domestic manufacturing. So right here in the House we encourage our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us in this Make It In America agenda, to promote a national manufacturing strategy that deals with trade policies that are fair, and that there will be a reciprocity of trade that will no longer leave our workers and our businesses at an unfair disadvantage, where others will be forced to play by the rules in the same way that our manufacturers and our workers play by the rules. A program that also promotes tax policies that encourage manufacturing in this country and stops the outsourcing of jobs overseas, which we have seen take place for decades now. That will be smart with respect to our energy policies, our labor policies.
We shouldn't be attacking workers. Workers are not the ones who drove our economy off the cliff. So that whole issue of disproportionate shared sacrifice, right? Just like we saw the disproportionate wealth accumulated in this country as it did with the help of the policies that were promoted by the last Republican administration. We need education policies as a part of that national manufacturing strategy to promote a workforce that will keep us competitive and on top. Policies that protect intellectual property and research and development right here. Because where you have research and development you have manufacturing, and vice versa.
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Of course, we need to strengthen and rebuild this country by investing in our infrastructure. It puts people to work, and it is what we need to do.
Smart cuts make sense, but so do smart investments, and infrastructure is a good way to go.
Mr. GARAMENDI. I am going to pick up right on the issues that you raised. These are the essential elements of a manufacturing strategy. So if we are going to make it in America, we need to make things in America and these are the essential things.
You talk about trade policy. We cannot continue just to give it all away and just expect to be importers of cheap products made elsewhere. So we need good trade policies that position America's manufacturing sector to be competitive.
We speak specifically here of China, a lot of issues involved in China, currency; and it goes on and on. But this is one of the areas where we must stand firmly or else we will lose it because somebody else is going to make it and ship it here.
Unfairly, taxes. The tax policy of the Nation needs to encourage manufacturing. I want to give two examples that were part of the Democratic agenda, and these are now in law. Last year, as part of our program, we provided a tax break for American manufacturers who invested in capital equipment. We said, don't worry about depreciation. You invest in capital equipment, that is grow your manufacturing capacity and you could write off against your taxes in 1 year, that investment. That's a tax policy.
The second tax policy we said is it's not right for American corporations to get a tax break when they offshore jobs. We said enough of that. No more, you are going to do that. On both of these policies, our Republican colleagues refuse to join us. So presumably they want to continue giving corporations tax breaks when they send jobs offshore, and they don't care whether American companies invest here in the United States with capital equipment.
Energy, crucial, crucial. We cannot any longer put our future to risk on international oil markets. We are seeing it today, the extraordinary rise in the cost of gasoline and diesel, energy policy, energy independence, advanced biofuels, conservation, electric cars, all of those things.
Labor, you talked about labor. Again, it was the labor movement that created the middle class in America by standing firm and saying the workers of America need to share in the great wealth of America. We have seen the decline of labor, and we have seen the equal decline of the middle class. They go together.
Labor, fair labor rules, what's going on in the Midwest, Wisconsin, your State of Ohio, other States, is wrong. The labor movement and collective bargaining is crucial to America's middle class because that gives the foundation, education policy.
What in the world are our Republican colleagues thinking about when they cut education funding? If we are going to compete, we need a well-
educated workforce, and you can't do it on the cheap. It requires an investment.
I use intellectual property here; we could just as easily use the word ``research.'' It is from the research that the new products are created. It's in those new products that the great profits are, and it's where we must protect the research.
Again, my Republican colleagues, why are you reducing the research budget for America? Why are you doing that, when, in fact, that's where the future industries come from? Don't, don't cut there.
And, finally, infrastructure, the foundation upon which everything moves, including thought.
We used to think of infrastructure being roads, streets, water systems, sanitation systems, yes. And now it's the intellectual infrastructure, the intellectual highway. All of that infrastructure is crucial if we fail to invest. By the way, in terms of the Net highway, access to the Net, the United States falls behind virtually every other industrialized country in the world and in many cases behind developing countries.
This is a Make it in America strategy. These are the elements: trade policy, tax policy, energy policy, labor policy, education, research, intellectual property and infrastructure. This is the Democratic agenda. This is what we are putting forth. This is what we will fight for because this is how you build the American middle class, by making it in America.
I want to thank my colleagues Ms. Sutton; Mr. Clarke, who was here earlier; our minority leader. We use the words minority whip now. You were our majority leader just a few months ago, and you will once again be because this agenda, the Make it in America, is the American solution to our economy and to our economic growth and to rebuilding the great American middle class.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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