[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1385-S1386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           TASK FORCE ON JOBS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we had this morning a task force that 
involved its work on the issue of jobs over in the Dirksen Building.
  I and Senator Daschle and Senator Bingaman from New Mexico, who is 
chairman of this task force, were a part of it. I wanted to point out 
some of what we are trying to do.
  This issue of Pat Buchanan moving around this country talking about 
jobs is not an accident. He understands what many of us understand--
that the center pole of the tent for the economic debate in this 
country ought to be jobs. I happen to think Pat Buchanan has a few dark 
sides to his debate. I do not like some of the influences which I see 
and some of the references. But the fact is on the issue of jobs, it 
seems to me, the voters of New Hampshire and others responded to the 
issue of jobs and economic opportunity. And it is something that we 
have been working on in our caucus under the leadership of Jeff 
Bingaman now for about a year. Today, we are unveiling a series of 
recommendations on the issue of creating jobs in our country.
  We have an interesting economy in America. America is still a strong 
country, and a wonderful place. Nobody wants to leave. People want to 
come here. We have some folks running for the Presidency who I think 
want to build a fence down there to keep people out of our country. 
What does that say about our country? It has a lot of problems but it 
is also a wonderful place and a magnet where a lot of people want to 
come to. We have an economy, however, where economists measure economic 
progress by taking a look at car wrecks, heart attacks, and 
earthquakes. There are economists down at the Federal Reserve who are 
measuring economic strength by examining car accidents, heart attacks, 
and earthquakes. Hurricane Hugo added one-half of 1 percent of GDP to 
this country because this country measures its economic health by what 
it consumes and not what it produces.
  In the long run the question of whether this country has a strong, 
vibrant, healthy economy will depend on how we produce, what we 
produce, and whether we have a strong manufacturing base. We have an 
economic system that has been redefined in our country in recent years 
by large international economic organizations. And they have redefined 
it by saying we choose to want to produce. Whether it is to produce and 
sell in established markets, we choose to access 20-cent an hour labor, 
or $1 an hour labor, and sell the shoes, or the products from that 
labor, the shirts, the belts, the cars in Pittsburgh, or Tokyo, or 
Fargo, or Denver. The problem is that disconnects. That is a global 
economic circumstance that we probably cannot 

[[Page S1386]]
change very much in the broader sense but that we address with respect 
to additional rules because it disconnects the income from the source 
of production from the consumers who are going to be consuming the 
benefits, or the fruits of production.
  The engine of progress in this country, in my judgment, is how do we 
create new, good-paying jobs? When people sit at the dinner table at 
night and talk about their lives as a family, the only question that 
matters is, ``Are we increasing our standard of living?'' And, 
regrettably for 60 percent of the American families, the answer is, 
``No. We are working harder.'' And over the last 20 years we are making 
less money, if you adjust it for inflation. There is no Government 
program, none that is as effective as a good job, or a substitute for a 
good job, that pays well.
  Now, the question is, Why are we losing manufacturing jobs? Why are 
jobs moving out of our country? Why are jobs going overseas? And what 
can we do about it?
  First, fair trade and fair competition. Our country ought not be 
ashamed ever to stand up and say we demand fair trade. We expect to 
compete, but we demand the competition be fair as well. When I was a 
kid walking to school, I knew every day that our country could win just 
by waking up; we were the biggest, the strongest, the best, and we 
could win the economic contest with one hand tied behind our back. But 
times are different, and we cannot do that today. And we ought to 
insist that fair competition and fair trade be hallmarks of our 
economic circumstances in this country.
  Second, it seems to me we ought to change our Tax Code. I introduced 
some legislation, and I am introducing more that says let us stop 
subsidizing movement of jobs overseas, this insidious, perverse 
provision in our Tax Code that says, if you close your plant here and 
move your jabs to a tax haven overseas, we will give you a little 
bonus. We will give you a tax break. We have already voted on that on 
the floor of the Senate, and I was unable to pass closing the tax break 
that says we will reward you if you move your jobs overseas. But guess 
what. You are going to get a chance on a dozen more occasions this year 
to vote on the same thing. We ought to shut down the tax breaks in our 
Tax Code that say to people: Move the jobs overseas and we will reward 
you.
  Third, we ought to provide some basic incentive to create jobs here, 
and I propose a 20 percent payroll tax credit for those who create new 
net jobs in this country. Let us shut off the incentive to move jobs 
overseas and create incentives to create new jobs in this country.
  I am not much interested in how many jobs exist in Japan or how many 
jobs exist in Germany or how many jobs exist in Mexico. I am interested 
in how many jobs exist in our country. This is an economic competition 
in which we are involved. It is a competition with winners and losers. 
It is not a circumstance where everybody wins. It is a circumstance 
where, if the rules are unfair and the competition is not fair, there 
are winners and losers. We are losing our manufacturing base in this 
country, and we can do something about it, the quicker the better. The 
task force that was headed by Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico is a task 
force that makes serious and specific recommendations that will try to 
create the incentives to create new jobs in this country--not 
elsewhere; in this country--in the future. The currency of ideas that 
are represented by the recommendations of that task force will be a set 
of ideas we will discuss over and over again in this Congress in 1996.
  It will not surprise anyone to understand the anxiety that exists in 
our country today. People are worried. They know that they are less 
secure in their jobs. You can work 20 years and be laid off without a 
blink by some enterprises. Their jobs pay less adjusted for inflation 
than they did 20 years ago in many cases. So they are worried about 
fewer jobs, jobs that pay less, and jobs with less security, and they 
want something done about it that increases the standard of living in 
this country.
  Government cannot wave a wand to make that happen, but the rules and 
the debate about how you create good jobs and how you stop the 
hemorrhaging of jobs from our country moving overseas is a debate that 
we ought to have right here in the center of the Senate.
  We are going to have an Olympics in Atlanta in August, and everybody 
is going to be rooting. We will root for all the wonderful athletes all 
around the world, but especially we will decide as Americans that those 
men and women wearing the red, white and blue are our team and we want 
them to do well. There is another competition that is not on the field 
of athletics. It is in the field of economics, worldwide economic 
competition to decide who wins and advances with new jobs and better 
opportunity and who suffers the turn-of-the-century British disease of 
long economic decline, who wins and who loses.
  Frankly, I want us to have a plan. I want our team to win. I want our 
team to decide that we will compete and we will win, and we will make 
sure the rules are fair as we compete. That is the purpose of trying to 
put together a series of steps that say our intent is to try to 
encourage new jobs created in this country and try to discourage, 
through the insidious provisions in our Tax Code, the export or the 
shipment of good jobs in America overseas. We ought not pay for that. 
We ought not provide incentives to move jobs elsewhere. I tell you 
what. Anybody who thinks that makes sense is not thinking. And I hope 
we will get the Senate to think a lot about that in 1996.
  Mr. President, we will be discussing at some greater length the 
legislation that I have introduced, and we will discuss at greater 
length the recommendations of the high wage task force of Senator 
Bingaman in the future as well. I look forward to those discussions.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeWine). The Senator from Pennsylvania is 
recognized.

                          ____________________