[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 26 (Wednesday, March 3, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2171-S2173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      OUTSOURCING OF AMERICAN JOBS

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I may not use all of my 20 minutes. I have 
been talking at some length this afternoon, although it is my custom to 
do so. I might point out, for those who are interested, this is not a 
filibuster. I am prepared to vote on this amendment right now. I was 
prepared to vote on it an hour and a half ago, but there are those who 
want to analyze what I am proposing.
  I suppose it is more than analysis that is occurring. They are trying 
to figure out how to defeat it, and I regret that because I do not 
think it is complicated. I think it is straightforward. I think it 
makes sense.
  I would not be offering this if this was not a problem sweeping 
across the country. Concerns are being expressed everywhere by 
Americans of varying incomes and positions. I know in my own State I 
have had meetings with people I could not put in the same town or 
county together a year ago who are coming to us now and saying, would 
you please do something here. I am talking about my chambers of 
commerce.
  I had a meeting last week at a Teamsters Local that included the 
chambers of commerce, the Manufacturers Association, the International 
Association of Machinists and Teamsters. I do not need to remind the 
Chair what a unique circumstance that is when a crowd like that gets 
together--by the way, all asking me to do the same thing.
  They were not just asking me but asking us what we were going to do, 
because they have watched the alarming decline of manufacturing jobs in 
the country, and it seems to be accelerating at a dramatic pace.
  Also the problem they foresee, and I agree with them on this 
outsourcing of jobs, which is very appealing, and I understand it from 
a corporate standpoint, when one sees their competitors, neighbors, and 
businesses are outsourcing and cutting their budgets by huge amounts 
because they can hire someone for $7 a day or $2 an hour, as opposed to 
paying them $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 a year, then the lure is 
remarkable.
  As we know, in fact, the Indian government is providing tremendous 
incentives to lure call centers, providing corporations with tax 
exemptions and building western-style technology parks fitted with 
telecom infrastructures.
  What are we doing? Are we doing anything to try and compete with that 
or are we just saying that is the way the world is and we better get 
used to it because that is what is going to happen for the foreseeable 
future, and maybe something will come along that will all of a sudden 
fill this vacuum, that will restore these manufacturing jobs or 
information technology and the like?
  I can only hope that would be the case because in the absence of 
doing anything else, we are going to find a continuing decline in this 
area.
  I worry about this from the standpoint of national security. In my 
State, I have over 5,000 small manufacturers. I have major corporations 
as well. I probably have more large Fortune 500 corporations in my 
State than any other State in the country on a per-capita basis, given 
the size of my State. My State is the home of major corporations. Many 
of them are major defense contractors, and those 5,000 small 
manufacturers in many cases are

[[Page S2172]]

suppliers of very sophisticated technologies for my defense contractors 
and others who produce sophisticated products.

  I do not need to tell the Presiding Officer, we have lost 35,000 jobs 
now in 36 months in this area. When those are lost, they are not 
reconstituted. Once they are gone offshore, the idea that you are going 
to rebuild that, my experience is--and I am prepared to listen to 
others who want to contradict me--I think it is unlikely.
  So the question I have to ask, as we stand here and receive this news 
almost on a daily basis, is there not some danger in losing this 
manufacturing capability for a time in the 21st century when we may 
find ourselves confronted with the fact these jobs we gave away are now 
being held by people in countries that do not agree with us on certain 
matters, and all of a sudden they do not want to supply us with certain 
component parts that may be necessary to build jet engines, submarines, 
Black Hawk helicopters or something else my State or the State of 
Tennessee or some other part of the country produces?
  We are watching this tremendous outflow occurring. The Presiding 
Officer was the former Secretary of Education, as I pointed out 
earlier, and again I understand the budget constraints. This is a very 
difficult time. Putting aside whether one agrees or disagrees on how we 
got to this situation, we have a terrible fiscal situation on our hands 
and yet even in the area of job training and assistance we are wiping 
out the manufacturing extension partnerships; we are cutting the SBA by 
millions of dollars; we are cutting vocational education by $316 
million; we are cutting the Workforce Investment Act by $448 million.
  We are not only not trying to compete with what India is doing on its 
creation of call centers, by offering tax incentives for businesses to 
stay here, we are even cutting back in the area that might offer some 
hope to someone in this area who is losing their job because it has 
been outsourced some place.
  On every front, we seem to have nothing to say to this issue right 
now, except this is the way life is; get over it, America. You just 
have to live with this. This is the way the world is going to be.
  I do not think it has to be that way. I think we can do better. I 
think that is what the American people ask us when we come here--try to 
do better.
  I have to look in the eyes of my own child, an infant, and I wonder 
what kind of a century she is going to grow up in. She will look back 
someday and ask herself, or hopefully me, what did you do back at the 
turn of this century when you knew this was going on, when you saw 
thousands of jobs leaving our country, when you saw manufacturing 
declining, what did you do? This was not some sneak attack. You were 
all aware of it. Your local papers wrote about it every day. Did you 
offer any ideas and suggestions on how we might compete in a global 
marketplace--because we should, we must--while simultaneously not 
losing the human investments, the human capital, that are critical for 
any successful society to succeed? What did you do?
  I am afraid if we go back and she looks at what we are doing at the 
outset of this century, then she would be startled to learn we are 
cutting back in the areas that might provide some educational 
opportunity for people in vocational areas, that we had nothing really 
to say to a hemorrhaging of jobs going out of the country, and that we 
were basically silent except to bemoan the fact that 2.8 million 
manufacturing jobs in 36 months disappeared in the country. And there 
is every indication those numbers are going to increase, and the impact 
on other sectors of our economy will be very profoundly affected.

  I mentioned already we are now being told the outsourcing of American 
jobs will probably exceed 3 million, close to 4 million over the next 
decade, unabated. That is a loss of $136 billion to $140 billion in 
salaries and wages in the United States, not to mention the human and 
societal impact.
  So I do not apologize to my colleagues for feeling as strongly as I 
do about this. I am a free trader. I voted for NAFTA. I thought it was 
the right thing to do. I voted to give fast track authority. I voted 
for the Jordanian agreements and others. I have opposed some as well. I 
have not been exclusively for them, but I believe in free and fair 
trade. I also believe a self-respecting nation cannot allow its human 
capital intelligence to be lost without standing up and trying to do 
something about it.
  The subject matter of this amendment very simply says at this 
juncture, look, let's stop. At least when it comes to the expenditure 
of Federal taxpayer money, those dollars ought not to be used to pay 
for outsourcing jobs until we figure out a better way to answer this 
problem. I do not think that is complicated.
  Now, I gather K Street in town is going ballistic at this very hour 
because obviously major corporations, 400 out of 1,000 top ones in the 
country, are doing it. Forty of fifty States are doing it right now. So 
they want to continue doing it because it is a great saver of money if 
you are focused on quarterly reports.

  That is their job on K Street and that is their job in the corporate 
board rooms, to worry quarter by quarter by quarter. I don't think that 
is right, but that is what they do. Thank the Lord there are many 
corporations who do think longer than that.
  Our job is not to think in quarters, not to be unmindful that 
corporations should and must. But our obligation is to have a broader, 
deeper vision; to think about longer term effects of decisions we make, 
no matter how attractive and how appealing they may be to someone who 
has to explain to a group of shareholders why it is that they have or 
have not exceeded last quarter's profit margins--bottom line.
  Certainly outsourcing will help do that on any given day. If you can 
hire someone for a couple of bucks and lay off that person in 
Connecticut, Tennessee, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, you are going 
to save money, I promise you. Quarterly reports are going to look 
great.
  But my question is, What does America look like? What does our Nation 
look like in the coming generation? In fact, if we lose these jobs, 
which are critical to our own well-being and success, if we lose 
manufacturing that we cannot replace, if we squander the ability to 
produce vital components and parts that are essential to contribute to 
our national defense structure, what does my country look like in 5 
years, 10 years, 20 years down the line?
  That is the question I am asking. That is why I am offering this 
amendment, to see if we cannot at least step up and say when it comes 
to the taxpayer's dime, that we should not be taking your tax dollar 
and subsidizing this outsourcing of jobs. If a private company, with 
its own money, wants to do it, that is their business. I regret it, but 
if they want to do it they have a right to do it. I think we ought to 
have tax incentives to discourage them one way or the other, but at the 
end of the day if they want to do it, they ought to be given the right 
to do it. I can't stop that. That is their dime.
  But on the taxpayer's dime, I think we ought to say something else. 
What my amendment does is say you cannot use that dime. You cannot use 
that dime to lay off somebody and hire someone 14 time zones away to do 
a job that a hard-working American ought to be able to hold and do in 
order to provide for their family.
  I don't think that is outrageous. I don't think that is isolationist 
or protectionist. I think that is standing up for the people of this 
country who expect nothing less from those of us who represent them in 
this Chamber. That is why I am offering this amendment. My hope is 
tomorrow morning we can get to it and vote on it and dispose of it one 
way or the other. If you want to vote against it, vote against it. But 
I ask you to join with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Coleman, 
and others who have been a part of this effort, to say this is our way 
of saying to people out there we hear you.
  We are not suggesting this amendment is perfect. I would be the last 
person to say that. I am sure it is not perfect. But at least it says 
to voters and to constituents out there who are worrying every day 
whether they are going to become one of those statistics, that we are 
going to try to do something about this, so you need to know your 
Government, your Congress is doing what it can to stop this.

  Our obligation is not exclusively to them. We have obligations to 
others as

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well, including those who serve and work in these corporations. I am 
not against them at all, but they are making their decisions in what 
they determine is in their best interests and the best interests of 
their shareholders. I respect that.
  But I have a higher obligation. I have an obligation, not only to 
that shareholder but to the people who work for them as well. I respect 
those who only have to worry about the narrow constituency, but I 
wasn't elected by the people of Connecticut to come here and merely 
worry about that narrow constituency. I have another obligation. I 
serve in the Senate, not just a State legislature. When I am here and I 
vote and I cast ballots, they don't just affect the people who live in 
my State, that I represent; they are part of the 280 or 290 million 
people across this country.
  I look at the 2.8 million who have lost their jobs in manufacturing, 
the close to 3 million who will lose their jobs to outsourcing in the 
coming days, maybe as many as 14 million, we are being told, over the 
next couple of years. I didn't dwell on this particular chart at this 
moment, but 14 million additional jobs are in danger of being shipped 
overseas. Those people want to know whether or not we have anything to 
say to them.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I don't know of 
another issue that is more important to the American public at this 
hour than this one. We have seen it all across the country in the last 
number of days. National news programs talk about it every single night 
and report nightly about corporations that are outsourcing more and 
more jobs.
  The American people want to know what we have to say to them. So I 
regret we have not been able to vote on this earlier. I didn't intend 
to take this time. I was prepared to vote 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago, but 
there are those who do not want to vote on this amendment right now. My 
hope is we will be able to do so first thing in the morning and say 
with a very loud, clear, and my hope is a unanimous voice that we stand 
with those who worry about whether America is squandering its wealth 
and its treasury, not just the treasury of dollars and cents but a far 
more important treasury, the human capital that is the American 
workforce.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I respect the distinguished Senator from 
Connecticut, as he knows. I will certainly look at this amendment. But 
throughout this day I have seen others on the other side continually 
talk about jobs and loss of jobs like we are not doing anything about 
it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This very bill, FSC/ETI, 
is a very important bill. We call it the Jumpstart Our Business 
Strength on Jobs bill because it will help us to increase the number of 
jobs in this country by huge dimensions. It also is a smart thing to 
do. It also saves us $4 billion in assessed costs with the E.U. in 
international trade, if we get this done. That is very important.
  Some of the comments I have heard today, not those of the 
distinguished Senator from Connecticut--in fact, I exclude his 
comments--some of the comments I have heard today would have you 
believe the only way you are going to get jobs is more of the same: 
More Government, more Government support, more and more controls, more 
and more approaches towards unionizing America.
  I am one of the few Members of this body who ever held a union 
journeyman's card. I worked 10 years in the building construction trade 
unions and earned my journeyman lather's card. The laths trade was one 
of the most interesting trades. In the early days it was wood lathing, 
little partitions of woods that you put on partitions and ceilings that 
you would plaster over. In my day it was metal lath, which was a much 
more high-tech approach towards putting up partitions and ceilings and 
elliptical arches and Gothic arches, and it was a very skilled trade 
and I was fortunate that I was able to do that and I am proud I was 
able to do that.
  Today, the lathing trade is no longer in existence because we priced 
ourselves out of the marketplace. Today, all of the lathers who used to 
work in this very skilled trade had to transition into the carpenters' 
union because their trade no longer could pay for itself.
  As a matter of fact, you don't see many buildings plastered today. 
The reason you don't, it is just too expensive. So drywall has become 
the norm. I am not criticizing anybody. What I am saying is, we can 
price ourselves out of the marketplace.
  I can remember time after time, my fellow union lathers would say: 
Hey, kid, slow down. We are not going to have any work if you keep 
working so fast.
  My father was one of the best lathers in the world and taught me the 
trade.
  He said: Look, you give an honest day's work for an honest day's 
dollar and you work as hard as you can.
  It was anathema to me to slow down so we could have more work. That 
is what happened. They slowed down and the work dissipated and, of 
course, the trade no longer exists.
  I think we are worse off because we don't have lath and plaster in a 
lot of our buildings today. I am not blaming my fellow union members, 
but sometimes we have to acknowledge that there are gives and takes in 
the business world. The fact that some businesses do their business 
offshore is not necessarily bad because in many cases we get even more 
jobs onshore. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes it is bad. But by and 
large, business in this country has always worked because we believe in 
the free market system. We believe in competition. We believe in high 
productivity.
  My feeling is that this country cannot be beat in productivity. If we 
really work hard and we continue to do the best we can, we are always 
going to be able to compete.
  But where we cannot compete because of low wages and government 
subsidization and violations of international trade laws, then, my 
gosh, let's not quit. Let's go and find new jobs.
  This administration inherited some terrifically bad times. The whole 
last year of the Clinton administration was headed into recession, and 
everybody knows it. Anybody who says otherwise is not telling the 
truth. Everybody knows that. So this President inherited that.
  I don't particularly blame the Clinton administration. We do have 
cycles. But I have to say I think they could have done some things to 
have prevented it. But that is probably true of everything. He then 
inherited this recession, and on top of that comes September 11, which 
created magnificent problems for all of us. It was very costly and 
expensive and put pressure on the budget. It cost us in so many ways, 
even from a productivity and jobs standpoint.

  But economic growth for the third quarter of last year was up over 8 
percent. In the fourth quarter, it was 4.1 percent. I know years here 
when we would have killed for 4.1 percent. Frankly, I believe the first 
quarter of this year is going to be all right too, even though normally 
it is a slow quarter.
  I think all we have to do is do our best to work together as 
Democrats and Republicans without all the screaming and shouting like 
one side has all the answers and the other side doesn't, which I have 
heard a lot of today, and put aside the politics and do what is best 
for our country. Unfortunately, some just can't seem to do that.
  I believe the President is doing a great job. I believe his various 
Cabinet-level officials are doing great work. In fact, I have never 
seen better in my 28 years in the Senate. I believe it is time to be 
fair, decent, and honorable.

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