[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 47 (Tuesday, April 6, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3740-S3741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             THE JOBS BILL

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, when we return to the JOBS Act, the bill 
that the majority party pulled from the Senate floor because Senator 
Harkin offered an amendment on overtime, Senator Mikulski and I are 
going to offer an amendment. The amendment is very simple. It says 
this: We are going to end that provision in our Tax Code that says to 
American companies, if they will just pack up all of their belongings, 
fire all of their workers and move somewhere else offshore, make the 
same product and ship it back into our country, we will give them a tax 
break. Talk about perversity, that is perverse, offering a tax break to 
someone who moves their American jobs

[[Page S3741]]

overseas. Yet, that is exactly what exists in the Tax Code. We have 
voted on this before because I offered a similar amendment a number of 
years ago.
  Let me describe exactly how this tax break works. Let's say there are 
two companies in this country with manufacturing plants. Each company 
produces garage door openers and these companies do a good job. They 
employ American workers, they produce garage door openers for sale in 
the U.S. marketplace and they earn some profit. But one company decides 
what it really wants to do is move overseas because it does not have to 
pay $11 an hour for a manufacturing worker. The company can go to Sri 
Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia or China and hire a 16 year-old-kid or a 
12-year-old kid and pay them 12 cents an hour, working them 12 hours a 
day 7 days a week.
  So one of the companies that makes garage door openers leaves, makes 
exactly the same garage door opener now in Sri Lanka and ships it back 
into this country.
  The other company that makes garage door openers stays in America. 
The difference is that the company that left this country does not have 
to pay income taxes on their profits any longer because we have 
something called tax deferral. Until and unless they repatriate those 
earnings, those earnings are tax free in this country.
  Our amendment is very simple. It says this: If a company leaves this 
country and moves its jobs overseas to produce a product to ship back 
into this marketplace, the company loses tax deferral that now 
perversely incentivizes companies to leave this country. It is one 
thing to have companies leave because of bad trade agreements, because 
they can avoid the things we have fought for for years in this 
country--safe workplaces, fair labor standards, and decent wages. It is 
quite another thing for them to leave because in part we say we will 
give them a tax break if they leave our country. What a nutty idea and 
one that we ought to change.

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