[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 28, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H6263-H6270]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           MAKE IT IN AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, before I start, I would like to ask 
unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which 
to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on 
the subject of Manufacturing in America. This is the subject of my 
Special Order tonight.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, if I might just review with you and 
others what's happened since 2007 here in the United States. As this 
diagram indicates, beginning in 2007, the Great Recession during the 
George W. Bush administration, reaching its lowest point

[[Page H6264]]

in December of 2008 and January of 2009 where 750,000 jobs were lost. 
The Barack Obama administration came in in January of 2009 and within 2 
months passed the first stimulus bill which leveled off the decline and 
slowly began the recovery of the American economy. And most every month 
since January of 2009 we've seen an improvement, so that in this year, 
in 2010, we are now seeing small, but important, gains in the 
employment in America. Some 600,000 jobs have been created over the 
last several months. This is the result of policies that were enacted 
by the Democratic Congress, the Senate, and signed by the President.
  Those policies we need to understand. They began with the stimulus 
bill and carried on through several other pieces of legislation. In 
each and every one of those pieces of legislation, there was no help 
from our Republican colleagues. They were absent. They voted ``no'' on 
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; they voted ``no'' on the 
Workers, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act--93 percent of them 
voted ``no.'' One hundred percent voted ``no'' on the stimulus even 
though, as you can see from the charts here, it stabilized the economy 
and then led to 2.8 million people keeping their jobs and getting a job 
here in the United States.
  The Student Aid and Financial Responsibility Act, 100 percent of 
Republicans voted ``no,'' denying students larger loans, greater Pell 
Grants, and it goes on and on. The Cash for Clunkers--and we will hear 
from Ohio in a few moments--a majority of the Republicans voted ``no.'' 
The Democrats had to carry the day. The hiring incentives to restore 
employment, the HIRE Act, creating 300,000 jobs, again, it was the 
Democrats; the Republicans voted ``no.''
  So after this 18 months of concerted effort to create jobs in America 
through the various stimulus programs, such as the Cash for Clunkers, 
the homeowners assistance programs, all of those, we're seeing an 
improvement. But this was the first 18 months. We are now moving on to 
the second half of the Democratic agenda. If I might just reach over 
here, this is the second half of the Democratic agenda, Make It in 
America; Make It in America so that America can make it.
  Manufacturing matters, and that's the subject of our discussion. The 
first 18 months, get people back to work, stimulate the economy, set a 
solid foundation. We are now on the road to permanent improvement in 
the American economy through manufacturing.
  Joining me here tonight are my colleagues from Wisconsin and from the 
great State of Ohio to talk about manufacturing in the Heartland--some 
of it a little cool, or cold, depending on the time of the year, and 
some of it, the central part of America's manufacturing sector.
  I would like to ask the gentlewoman from Ohio, Betty Sutton, to join 
us and share with us her experiences about the great State of Ohio and 
``making it in America.''
  Ms. SUTTON. Thank you very much, Representative Garamendi, for your 
leadership as we move forward to activate our manufacturing base to 
revitalize our economy. By enacting policies that will work with our 
U.S. manufacturers and our workers, we are going to ``make it in 
America.''
  Manufacturing is the backbone of our economy; it's the backbone of 
our national security and, frankly, the promise of the middle class. 
When I grew up, it was a time when people could count on a good 
manufacturing job to put food on the table and take care of their 
families and have a pension that they could count on that would be 
there when they retired, and security. But we've watched our Nation 
witness the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs due to policies 
that put our companies and our workers at an unfair disadvantage. Over 
the last decade, we've certainly seen those effects across the country, 
but we've seen them in a big way in Ohio.
  The U.S. has lost roughly 6 million manufacturing jobs, with Ohio 
losing more than one in three manufacturing jobs in the last decade. 
We've seen factory after factory close as jobs are shipped overseas. 
We've seen our workers and our jobs undercut by foreign countries and 
foreign companies and competitors that engage in unfair trade tactics, 
ranging from Chinese currency manipulation, which is the same thing as 
cheating, to illegally subsidized steel; and for too long we haven't 
had a comprehensive plan to reverse this trend. But with our Make It in 
America initiative, we are saying very loudly, very clearly, and very 
persistently that we have had enough, that we are going to pass 
policies that work with and for our U.S. manufacturers and our workers 
and our country.
  Today we passed three bills that are going to bolster U.S. 
manufacturing and provide for families in northeast Ohio and across 
this country opportunities for good jobs for today and for tomorrow, 
because though we may make different things or improved things, we 
still need to make things; and we're going to do it today, and we're 
going to do it tomorrow.
  Manufacturing jobs have a multiplier effect like no other job out 
there. Each manufacturing job can generate at least four other jobs in 
the private sector. Our workers can compete--we know it--as long as 
they have a level playing field, and our Make It in America agenda is 
going to help level that playing field.
  So I'm very happy to be with you. I know we're going to talk about 
the bills that were passed today. And I want to just also, before I 
turn it over, talk about something that we're going to do tomorrow. 
Tomorrow we are going to, under the Make It in America agenda, we are 
going to take up the Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act, known 
as AQUA. It includes an amendment of mine that will ensure that U.S. 
taxpayer dollars, number one, are going to be used to build our cities' 
drinking water and sewer systems, and that when we do that, American-
made steel and iron and manufactured goods are going to be used to 
build them.

                              {time}  2130

  It is just another example of the things that we can do to make it in 
America and to make it possible for our workers and for our economy to 
make it in America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Would the gentlelady yield for a moment?
  Ms. SUTTON. I yield.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Do I understand you to say that, presently, our tax 
dollars that are used for water projects and sanitation projects 
purchase steel, pumps and other material which are manufactured 
overseas?
  Ms. SUTTON. We have seen our ``buy America'' provisions in a number 
of our bills be whittled away over time so that we aren't ensured the 
way that we should be. When taxpayer dollars are used, I think the 
American taxpayers expect that we use goods made in America and that we 
put Americans to work. That is what this amendment is now going to 
ensure so that the predicament that you've described can't happen, 
because we now have an amendment to stop it.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. So we will use our tax dollars to create manufacturing 
jobs in America.
  Ms. SUTTON. Exactly.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. We will make it in America.
  If the gentlelady would yield, I would like to turn to our colleague, 
Dr. Kagen from Wisconsin. He and I were chatting earlier, and he was in 
a rage about what happens on the international scene.
  Would you like to share that with us, Dr. Kagen?
  Mr. KAGEN. I certainly would.
  I want to thank you for convening this special hour to have this 
conversation about manufacturing things here in America and about 
making it in America.
  Ms. Sutton from Ohio described what we need. We need a level playing 
field because, with a level playing field, we can compete and win 
against anybody in the world as long as we have a level playing field, 
but that level playing field hasn't existed for quite some time. I'm 
not going to point fingers at which party started it, because we all 
had something to do with it--Democrats and Republicans alike.
  How did it happen? How did our manufacturing base escape and bleed 
away? Who opened the door? Who put the hole in the ship? Who bled away 
our American manufacturing base?
  I think it was corporate America. I think, today, we are really back 
to 1910 where our real competition is on Wall Street.

[[Page H6265]]

  So people who are back home, listening tonight, have to ask 
themselves a question: Well, whose side are we on? Do we have our heads 
in the boardroom of a Wall Street bank or of a Wall Street corporation 
that is benefiting by shipping our jobs overseas?
  No, not at all. We have our feet on the factory floor, and our voting 
record shows it.
  You mentioned earlier in your opening remarks about tax cuts. The 
Democrats have delivered over $300 billion in tax cuts to the middle 
class--to people like Elaine from Peshtigo, who wrote me this note. 
It's people like Elaine who have rung the bell:
  I am soon an 80-year-old woman and a widow. My husband and I farmed, 
and we certainly had hard times the first years, but the years now are 
harder for old people. Oil companies take a huge profit. The CEOs make 
a salary no man on earth is worth. Pill companies are taking huge 
profits with no consideration for old people. The people of my 
generation lived through the Depression, World War II and two more 
wars, and now, in our old age, we face other obstacles.
  Well, Elaine, from Peshtigo, Wisconsin, has nailed it. We are on her 
side. We voted to prevent the Republicans from privatizing Social 
Security. We voted to prevent the Republicans from sending her money to 
Wall Street. We voted to strengthen Medicare and to make sure that 
there are services available for prevention--and at no cost to her and 
to her husband, should he still be around. We have strengthened 
Medicare, but the Republicans are trying to destroy it.
  Let me come back to the essential point of being here. We know things 
are tough for everybody in California, Ohio, Wisconsin, and everywhere 
else in America. How did it get this way? Well, we have been through 
some tough times. We are going to make it, but we have a lot of work to 
do.
  What happened to our middle class? Middle class destruction. Here is 
where it is today:
  Today, the banks own more homes than people do.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Excuse me.
  Are you telling us that banks own more homes than individual families 
do?
  Mr. KAGEN. The banks own more homes today than individual people do.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Those would be Wall Street banks?
  Mr. KAGEN. Those would be banks which derivatized and created these 
derivatives to somehow gin up the mortgage market to $63 trillion when 
it was down to $13 trillion. The banks own more homes than people do, 
but people need to be in their own homes at prices they can afford to 
pay.
  Secondly, executives on Wall Street earn incomes that are 300 times 
that of a worker on the factory floor--300-1. Well, 25, 30 years ago, 
it was 20- to 25-1. Now it's 300-1. So things have been tilted in Wall 
Street's favor.
  Again, whose side are you on--Wall Street's or Main Street's?
  Third, these numbers are pretty frightening.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. If the gentleman would yield, the Wall Street Reform 
Act goes to the heart of both of those issues.
  Mr. KAGEN. Exactly.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. There was significant reform of the mortgage industry 
with the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and there was 
also a provision--well, it wasn't in the Wall Street Reform Act, but 
there is a debate going on now here in Congress and in the Senate about 
what to do with this executive pay, with this 300-1 ratio. That is the 
question of:
  Do we continue the middle class tax cuts, and do we let the tax cuts 
expire that the Bush administration put in for the high and the mighty 
and the wealthy?
  Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Please.
  Mr. KAGEN. The wealthy in America have had a 10-year free ride. For 
the past 10 years, they haven't paid their fair share. As a direct 
result, 63 percent of the people in America who used to be middle class 
are now living paycheck to paycheck and week to week, and 43 percent of 
Americans have less than $10,000 in their retirement funds. That is 
going up towards half of the people in this country who will never be 
able to retire.
  Things have tilted towards the top. This trickle-up philosophy that 
Republicans launched on us for the past 8 years really hasn't worked 
for the middle class. That is why I call it ``middle class 
destruction,'' and the numbers prove it. We have to keep people in 
their own homes, but they can only afford homes if they have the higher 
wage jobs, jobs where they're making things in America.
  Let me show you this one. If you thought that was bad, here is our 
competition.
  How does the middle class become destroyed? How do you compete with 
garment workers in China who are being paid 82 cents per hour? Well, I 
guess you go to Cambodia, because they get paid 22 cents per hour.
  Now, America is watching tonight. Do you think Elaine's children and 
grandchildren are looking forward to working for 22 cents an hour? 
Maybe the banks should own all of the homes. As for the middle class in 
America, I'm not sure why we even talk about it. It's an endangered 
species.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Before you go to the next issue, I recall a piece of 
legislation that we had on the floor more than a month ago. That piece 
of legislation dealt with corporate tax breaks. It ended corporate tax 
breaks for corporations that ship jobs offshore. When a corporation 
under the present Tax Code sends a job offshore, it gets a tax break. 
It amounts to $14.5 billion a year.
  Would you put that previous one back up?
  Mr. KAGEN. I sure will. Do you want the 22 cents an hour?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. The 82 or the 22 cents an hour. Either way.
  So, if a corporation were to be making shirts, ties, or suits here in 
America, it could ship those jobs to China or to Cambodia and get a tax 
break. Now, this House voted to end that tax break. We voted to end 
that tax break.
  Mr. KAGEN. But it was Democrats.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Again, whose side are you on?
  Mr. KAGEN. Right.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Every Republican voted to continue that corporate tax 
break, giving those corporations tax advantages, literally giving them 
our tax money so that they could offshore that garment worker's job.
  Ms. SUTTON. Excuse me. Will both gentlemen yield for just a moment?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Of course.
  Ms. SUTTON. You bring up such an important point.
  We had this policy that encouraged jobs to be moved offshore, and we 
had other policies that, frankly, allowed, for many years, unfair 
practices to undercut our workers and our businesses.
  Now, I know we're all pretty new here. You know, I'm in my second 
term, and you're in your first term, and the gentleman from Wisconsin--
you know, we just came here, so we're fresh in the fight. Yet the 
reality is that it is important to notice what was happening before the 
big recession hit.

                              {time}  2140

  So in Ohio, those wages have taken our jobs overseas, with the help 
of tax policies that we have finally been able, with the majority on 
this side of the aisle, to pass by ourselves to try and change.
  And it does beg the question, and I listened to your comments earlier 
about how we went through this litany of measures to try and stabilize 
the economy, and we did. And now, of course, this is so important 
because this goes beyond stabilizing the economy, and it goes towards 
creating real value by making real things, not pretend values that the 
banks made and people moving money around made.
  Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentlewoman yield?
  Ms. SUTTON. I will yield.
  Mr. KAGEN. We want a middle class to have higher wage jobs, to earn 
the money they need, to not just educate themselves as workers, but 
also their family, to begin to save for a retirement that so far they 
haven't had, and that can only happen with manufacturing jobs. But how 
can any corporation on Wall Street or Main Street compete with a 
government?
  What's really going on in the world today is the idea, the free 
market capitalism idea that grew up our middle class, the greatest 
middle class in human history. Free market capitalism has bumped into a 
brick wall in

[[Page H6266]]

China because the Chinese and Asian model of capitalism is the 
government is the business, because over in China, the case against 
China, they have no environmental protection laws. We do. The cost of 
everything we make went up. Theirs went down.
  They have absolutely no social safety net. If a worker in a factory 
gets injured, he or she is a widget and is gone. No social safety net.
  And finally, they really, until recently, haven't had a middle class. 
They're beginning to move up and develop a middle class. But, you know, 
where I come from, why should we have to have our middle class begin to 
disappear just so they can develop their own? I think that's wrong.
  And my final slide here, the chase against China. Everybody on the 
Democratic side of the aisle is fervently interested in promoting 
making things in America. But how can we compete against China when 
they continue to manipulate their currency? It gives them a 20 percent 
to 40 percent price advantage right out of the chute. When China 
provides subsidies to investors from foreign nations to come in and not 
pay taxes for several years, well, we can't afford to do that. We 
actually care about people in America.
  And what about the value-added tax, giving them 17 percent benefit? 
They have import barriers you can't believe.
  And then they have something else we're going to begin to talk about, 
like ``Buy American.'' They've had, for a number of years, ``Buy 
Chinese.'' They have taken advantage of the United States of America. 
And this Congress, both the House and the Senate, until this point in 
time, has been had because we fell into this trap of chasing things at 
the lowest price of production. But these days must come to an end, and 
I believe it's time for the American people to understand whose side 
are we on.
  The Democrats have a policy and a way forward to work our way back 
into prosperity, and it begins with addressing our trade imbalance with 
Asia and, specifically, with China. It begins with this administration 
changing their mind about allowing China to manipulate its currency. It 
begins with people like Ms. Sutton, Mr. Garamendi, myself, standing up 
to big corporations on Wall Street and calling them out.
  It's time to change their ways, begin to make things in America, do 
that through our trade deals as well.
  And I yield.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Ms. Sutton, would you like to pick it up from there?
  Ms. SUTTON. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and I would--because 
sometimes we come down here and we make the case, but it's important to 
also let people know that it's not just us saying this. The Economic 
Policy Institute, on this point about China, the Economic Policy 
Institute reported that unfair trade with China has cost our Nation 2.4 
million jobs between 2001 and 2008.
  Ohio, where I am so honored to serve, has lost nearly 92,000 jobs 
because of China alone. In my congressional district, the 13th District 
of Ohio, made up of hardworking citizens who want nothing but a fair 
shake, in my congressional district, 5,700 jobs have been lost as a 
result of China's currency manipulation, pointed out by the gentleman 
from Wisconsin, and other illegal subsidies and unfair trade barriers. 
And these, of course, are good paying jobs that pay family sustaining 
wages.
  And if I could just indulge the gentleman for one moment about a case 
study, something that has played out in the past year or so. You know, 
during this recession, when market forces would indicate that you cut 
back on steel production, do you know what China did? They ramped up 
production. They dumped that steel into the United States, and my steel 
companies, our manufacturing companies in Lorain, Ohio, at U.S. Steel--
and I like the name, U.S. Steel--were undercut, and so our workers were 
laid off.

  So what did we do? What is our mechanism? Right? Our mechanism is we 
go to the International Trade Commission. So they had a preliminary 
hearing, and I went to the preliminary hearing, which was, evidently, 
an unusual move. But I think I've got to do everything I can to stand 
up for the people that I represent, so I went to the preliminary 
hearing.
  We got them to move the process forward to a final hearing. We took a 
letter, I took a letter signed by 40-some colleagues in this House, and 
we went--I went and others got others to go, and we all went to the 
final hearing of the ITC. This was about oil country tubular goods, 
which is what we make in the 13th Congressional District, and how China 
was unfairly subsidizing their steel.
  And what happened? A unanimous decision that it was, indeed, 
happening. And you know what? That's good, right. That's good news. But 
the only problem is our people have been out of a job for over a year 
before we get the tariff gone.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me, if I might, just bring that to the West Coast. 
The San Francisco Bay Bridge, from Oakland to San Francisco, major 
artery, had a problem with the Loma Prieta earthquake and had to be 
rebuilt. It's been a long process to rebuild. It's going to be a 
magnificent new bridge.
  The CalTrans, California Transportation Authority went out to bid. An 
American contractor proposed two bids. One bid was the steel would be 
manufactured and fabricated here in the United States; the other bid 
was the steel would be manufactured and fabricated in China. There was 
a 10 percent difference. The State of California chose to save 10 
percent, and all of the steel winds up being imported from China.
  We lost jobs. This is an example of where our tax money, and that's 
exactly what it is, was not used to support American jobs but, rather, 
used to support jobs in China. For what, 10 percent?
  It turns out it actually turned out to be more expensive because the 
Chinese welds in the fabrication were not satisfactory, were purposely 
hidden, and it was only because an inspector finally arrived from 
California, looked at it and said, Oh, my. This will not work. So they 
had to go back and do the whole thing over.
  One example. I'll give you more examples as we go down here, but I'm 
telling you this: We can make it in America.
  Wind turbines. We led in the development of wind turbines. We're 
spending billions of dollars a year to subsidize the wind turbine 
industry.
  China said, Oh, we've got wind in China. Let's build wind turbines. 
They have excluded every international company except a Chinese company 
in the manufacturing of turbines, and now they are exporting those 
turbines to America.
  The same way with solar panels, photovoltaic panels. And I'll come to 
buses a little later. But this is something that I find extraordinarily 
wrong, and we're going to change it. And before this conversation is 
over, we're going to talk about how it can change.
  Mr. Kagen--excuse me. Dr. Kagen.
  Mr. KAGEN. Yes, yes, the doctor in the House. Thank you.
  I was very moved by the idea of steel being targeted for extinction 
by Communist China. I was very moved. But I represent Paper Valley, you 
know, Kimberly-Clark, Proctor & Gamble. We have 22 different paper 
companies in my district or just outside of it. We invented the tissue 
business and femcare products. We have some tremendous paper products.

                              {time}  2150

  But we have some problems. The problem is that China has targeted not 
just steel for extinction here in America, but also automobiles, and a 
number of other things. And the list goes on: armaments, power 
generation, oil and petrochemicals, telecommunications, civil aviation, 
shipping, machinery, automobiles, information technology, iron, steel. 
They have some very strategic plans underway to target everything we 
manufacture for extinction to take the jobs away.
  And let me detail how they did it in paper. The government would 
purchase raw materials in Brazil, at government expense ship it over to 
China, ship it from the port on trucks up to the paper mill, make the 
paper. And then again at government expense, after the government 
allows slave-like wages to be paid, the government then pays for the 
paper to be shipped back to the port, shipped over off of Oakland, and 
then dumped into the United States of America below our cost of 
production.
  Well, as Ms. Sutton pointed out, the International Trade Commission 
can at times be effective, but it takes so long.

[[Page H6267]]

You know, justice delayed is justice denied. In health care, treatment 
delayed is malpractice. And what happened in the paper industry, we 
lost two paper companies in my district because of unfair trade and 
unbalanced trade with Communist China. Only recently did the Appleton 
company that makes coated paper have a successful case before the ITC.
  I had the opportunity to testify, much as Betty did, and I was proud 
to hold up a picture of the family and to let these judges know that 
we're not talking about dollars and cents and the worth of a piece of 
paper like a stock. We're talking about people that live in their home 
and can't chase their job to China. You can't swim to China, get the 
job. You can't survive there. So the bottom line is we have to ship our 
values overseas, not our jobs.
  Ms. SUTTON. You are so right. I just want to put a highlight on this 
fact. When we went to that hearing, the standard for judgment is 
material harm. So we showed that these actions were undertaken and 
resulted in material harm; and that material harm, those are people, 
people with families that they're trying to raise right here in this 
country right in Lorain, Ohio, and in Wisconsin, and all over this 
great country. And because of the length of time that this went on, 
these folks didn't have the income coming in. And guess what? Then our 
communities didn't have the tax base to support what? Police and fire 
and city services. And we end up what? Paying unemployment. And people 
suffer the loss of the dignity of work, which is so important to the 
people that I represent. They just want an opportunity.
  Mr. KAGEN. Everybody that we represent understands the United States 
of America can't pay its bills, can't pay its debts on unemployment 
checks. We need real checks, checks that come from manufacturing. And 
that we can do with balanced trade, but we are running out of time. The 
American people understand that. That's part of their anger. That's 
part of their great frustration.
  And I know that we have been listening to them on the Democratic side 
of the aisle, and we are moving as hard and pressing as hard as we can 
against any administration, against anyone in the United States Senate 
to begin to identify how we can begin to make things in America again, 
put people back to work so they can stay in their own home.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. At the beginning of this discussion, the gentlewoman 
from Ohio talked about the wise use of our tax money, in this case in 
the water systems and the sanitation systems, to use that tax money for 
materials and products and machines that are built in America. That's 
but one example. It's a very good example, because we desperately need 
that infrastructure. It's the foundation for quality life, for healthy 
life, as well as for building our economy.
  There's another one that came to me in this process. Actually, today 
I had a telephone town hall, and a fellow said, you know, in Vallejo, 
California, the old shipyard at Vallejo, Mare Island Shipyard, has this 
huge building, and one of the European train companies is setting up a 
shop there. They don't know what they are going to do with it, but is 
there some way that you could help that company bring to Vallejo, 
California, and Mare Island jobs to refurbish trains? And my answer 
was, yes, absolutely.
  We have had a buy American provision in your tax money for years and 
years. There has also been in the law four waivers that Secretaries of 
Transportation have used repeatedly for more than 20 years now to waive 
off, forget about, ignore the buy America clause. So about $5 billion a 
year of our gasoline tax money is used not to buy buses and trains and 
light rail cars made in America, but rather made overseas.
  So my answer to this gentleman was a piece of legislation that I have 
introduced, a lot of support among my Democratic colleagues to simply 
tell the Secretary of Transportation you don't have four waivers; we're 
eliminating three of those discretionary waivers. If the cost is more 
than 25 percent, then maybe you can have a waiver. But the other three 
waivers, they're gone. We're bringing those manufacturing jobs, those 
manufacturing jobs that build the buses, that build the trains, that 
build the BART cars, the MARTA cars, the transit cars here in 
Washington, DC, we are going to make those in America because, by 
golly, that's our tax money, and we're going to use it in America just 
as we're going to use our tax dollars to make those sanitation systems 
and water systems from American-made goods. That's our promise, and we 
can do it.
  I talked to Secretary LaHood, the Secretary of the Department of 
Transportation, yesterday. I said, Mr. Secretary, I know that you have 
been working hard not to give waivers, but I want to give you--in fact, 
I want to take away three of the tools that your predecessors have used 
to ship jobs overseas. And he said, I'm not giving waivers. And I said, 
if my bill passes, you won't be able to. We're going to spend that 
money in America. One more example of what we can do not just for jobs 
today, but for tomorrow and for generations in the future using our tax 
money to make it in America.

  Manufacturing matters. It's the heart and soul of the middle class. 
It is the strength of the economy. And we're going to reestablish in 
America the manufacturing industries of yesterday and today, whether 
it's buses or trains or light rail.
  Mr. Kagen, you were kind of getting agitated there. Maybe you want to 
add to this.
  Mr. KAGEN. Yeah, I was going to actually ask you a question. Isn't it 
true that we have really begun to close those tax loopholes that 
allowed these Wall Street corporations, with the Republican support, to 
take our jobs overseas? Is that really true?
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, the answer is halfway home. This House passed 
legislation more than a month ago, and tomorrow I believe we will have 
that same legislation back for another vote. Our Republican colleagues 
universally voted ``no'' on ending the tax loophole that gives 
corporations $14.5 billion of our tax money to offshore American jobs. 
We're going to end it. We're going to put the issue back on the floor 
tomorrow.
  The problem is the United States Senate and the Republican Party, 
where in the Senate one Republican Senator stands up and objects and 
says I'm going to filibuster, and everything stops. They got to round 
up 60 votes. The Republican Party controls that 60 votes, and they have 
repeatedly, time after time said ``no'' to jobs for American workers in 
the first 18 months of this Congress, where we have put 2.8 million 
people back to work. The Republicans in this House and in the Senate 
say ``no.''
  I have got a solution for it. The next Senator that says, I object 
and I'm going to filibuster ought to be paraded down to the well of the 
Senate, the microphones turned on, and start talking, Mr. Senator. 
Let's see how long you are going to talk with the C-SPAN cameras on 
you. My guess is within an hour you'll make a fool of yourself. The 
filibuster will be over. The votes will be there to put Americans back 
to work.
  I yield.
  Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman, and I could not agree more. Call 
the bluff. Let them get up, make the case to the American people about 
why they're standing between people who need jobs and the jobs that can 
be there. I mean, I don't think the American people will stand with 
them. I think they will stand with these policies that we are offering 
now in this agenda and this moment forward on making it in America.
  And I just have to ask the question, because it is really startling 
if you think about, you laid out all of the things that we did to try 
and stabilize the economy, and all of the actions we are undertaking 
and have been undertaking as we build towards the future, where we can 
make products in America and we can also enable our communities and our 
workers and our businesses to make it in America.

                              {time}  2200

  Every once in a while people must turn on the TV, I know that they 
do, and they hear our counterparts on the other side, and they say over 
and over again, as if the American people won't notice that they're 
voting against everything, they say: Where are the jobs? Where are the 
jobs?
  Well, the reality of it is we're putting the bills on the floor and 
you're voting

[[Page H6268]]

against the jobs. So there's this idea that they must insult the 
American people by suggesting that somehow the jobs are missing. You're 
voting against the jobs, and now you have a chance to join us in the 
Make It in America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Yesterday, Dr. Kagen and I were in the Transportation 
and Infrastructure Committee hearing, and Dr. Kagen was in the chair, 
and we heard from a panel of contractors and bus manufacturers that the 
stimulus bill actually created jobs.
  Dr. Kagen, I know you have personal experience in this. You had told 
me about it earlier. Why don't you share that experience where 
Republicans say no jobs are created, yet the contractors, the voters 
are saying thank goodness for the stimulus bill because it kept me in 
business, it kept my employees employed. Dr. Kagen.
  Mr. KAGEN. The real question would be where would America be today, 
where would our economy be today, had we not in February of 2009 passed 
the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? We'd be in the tank.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. That was the stimulus bill.
  Mr. KAGEN. That was the stimulus bill. More and more people would be 
out of work. We stabilized State governments. We stabilized private 
corporations like road builders, like asphalt people, like bridge 
builders. We stabilized State and local governments to make sure that 
the police would be there when you dial 911. We stabilized fire 
departments to make sure if you're on fire at home, help will be on the 
way. But no, somebody over there has got people confused and angry that 
somehow it just didn't work.
  Look, many economists have said that the economic stimulus bill that 
we passed last year simply wasn't big enough to get us all the way out 
of the economic ditch that we're in, but make no mistake about it. The 
Democratic Party and all of us here in Congress who are voting ``yes'' 
for progress, we are cleaning up after the biggest elephant parade in 
American history. There is so much mess to clean up.
  Now, I always told my patients that it would take you about as long 
to get better as it took you to get sick and to come into my office, 
and it's going to take us a while to work our way back into prosperity. 
We will succeed but people in America have an election coming up, and 
not to be electioneering, but you have to ask yourself the question: 
What would your life be like without the stimulus bill and having the 
police and firemen there when you need them? What would your children's 
life be like at school not to have a qualified educator and teacher in 
the room to help your children get that world-class education they're 
going to need to compete against unfair trade deals, as we have with 
Asia?
  So the bill clearly worked and the testimony yesterday in the 
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was a resounding ``yes.'' I 
asked each of the gentlemen there to testify, a hypothetical question: 
If you had been in Congress, knowing what you know now about how it 
benefited your company, would you have voted for the stimulus bill. 
Yes, yes, yes, yes, universally it has helped.
  Now, where do we need to invest? Here in America. And when I ask my 
constituents I say, look, I'm your hired hand. I've got your tax 
dollars right here. Where should we build the next bridge, the next 
school, in the sands of Iraq, maybe in northern or southeastern 
Afghanistan? No, Doc, we need that invested here at home.
  Our Nation's infrastructure is about $2.1 trillion behind. We need to 
build our bridges once again, our schools, our water treatment plants. 
Our hard-earned tax dollars are better invested here at home to grow 
the economy, to grow the jobs that we need, not on Wall Street but on 
Main Street, and the real contest here is who are we listening to.
  Now, if the C-SPAN camera pans around, they will see a whole lot of 
empty chairs, but there are three Members standing up having a 
conversation about in which direction we're going to be moving. But you 
have to ask the question: who are these other gentlemen and ladies 
listening to? I'm listening to Elaine from Peshtigo. You're listening 
to people back home from California, from Ohio, and this is a painful 
job. This is a painful job because progress is so slow.
  But be confident, America. We're beginning to make progress. We're 
moving our economy forward and up. We need to move up, not down.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me give another example of where we can set the 
stage for future manufacturing jobs in America. It was America that 
really created the photovoltaic cells. We've lost this industry in 
America. This is in China. Some of it is in Europe. But it's no longer 
really much of a manufacturing industry in America.

  We talked earlier about the wind turbines and the way in which that 
industry has gone offshore. We talked about the buses. It turns out 
that many, many economists, and certainly I would join with them, say 
that the future industries are green technology industries. We have to 
shift away from coal and oil. We needed to be energy independent. The 
green technologies of solar, wind, all of those biofuels and algae 
fuels, all of those are the industries of the future.
  Yet, our tax money is not used to support those industries. All too 
often here's what happens: Just as in buses, our tax money is used to 
buy wind turbines from China or Korea. I will give you another example 
on the wind turbine. Let me get that wind turbine back up here so I can 
get excited about this.
  I represent some of the biggest wind resource areas in the Nation: 
the Altamont Pass and the Solano wind resource area. I was out there 
touring it one day with one of the three companies that operate in the 
area. I looked at this thing. It's 400 feet tall. The blades are wider 
than the length of a football field. It's going round and round and 
generating electricity, and I said, where is it made? And the executive 
looks at me and said, well--I said, no, no, where is it made? He said, 
well, the tower is made in Korea. Oh, how about the blades? Well, the 
blades are coming from Europe. And I said what about the generator and 
all of the electronics? Well, it's not made here. It's either made in 
China or it's made in Europe. And I told him, I said, what's wrong with 
that story? And he said, well, that's where it's made. And I said 
you're receiving serious taxpayer subsidies to build those, to put 
those towers in place, and you are subsidizing China. Do you think 
that's right?
  He goes, well--and I said, I'm going to promise you this. I'm going 
to go back to Washington and I'm going to introduce legislation that 
says in the green technology, all of those subsidies, all of those tax 
subsidies for putting the photovoltaic system on top of your roof, for 
building a huge, giant solar thermal system or biofuels of all kinds, 
and of course the wind turbines, if you want that tax subsidy, it's 
going to be made in America or else you will get no tax subsidy. Those 
are our tax dollars. Those tax dollars are going to be spent on 
American-made equipment. And he said, Well, I don't think we can do it. 
I said, Your choice; you don't want the subsidy, then you can buy it 
from China, but by golly, if you want a subsidy, you're going to buy 
American-made equipment.
  That bill is introduced. It is going to move because Democrats 
understand American taxpayer money, whether it's building a sanitation 
system or a water system or paying for a wind turbine or a photovoltaic 
system on top of your house, those are going to be made in America.
  Ms. SUTTON. Or a bridge or a highway. We want this to all be made in 
America. These are taxpayer dollars. The taxpayers expect it to happen. 
We need to do this work when it needs to be done, but we need to do it 
with the American workers and American businesses having the chance to 
make it in America.
  I just want to say to my friend from Wisconsin, I know what he's 
trying to convey in his remarks, but you know, the American people, 
they are facing great challenges, and that's what you're reflecting in 
your comments.
  And I have to tell you that I still think that this job, this honor 
that I have to serve here, I don't think it's painful. I think it's a 
privilege and I think it's an honor, and I know that the gentleman 
thinks the same thing about his service in this House.

                              {time}  2210

  Because when people are facing the unfair competition that they are 
facing, the policies that are working

[[Page H6269]]

against them instead of with them, the cheating that goes on with 
currency manipulation and unfair practices, all of those things that 
are happening, we are here in this moment and we have a chance to 
change it for them and it matters the most.
  So I am very excited about being here, fighting forward, not fighting 
back, but fighting forward to make sure that we make it in America by 
strengthening U.S. manufacturing at every turn in ways that make sense 
for our country, our people. We know we need to manufacture here also 
because our national security requires us to make things in America.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Dr. Kagen.
  Mr. KAGEN. I certainly appreciate my colleague's comments and I 
couldn't agree with her more that what we are talking about is our 
national security. If you don't make anything, you won't have anything. 
If we don't have a viable economy, we cannot defend ourselves with our 
military. So we need to manufacture things here in America if, for 
nothing else, for our own national security.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, we have about 10 minutes left, and I would like 
to bring us back really to where we started, or where I started this 
discussion, and that is, for the first 18 months, the strategy of the 
Democratic Party in this House, in the Senate, and with President Obama 
has been to stabilize the American economy. Let me go back to this. 
Let's review what was happening.
  Beginning in December of 2007, the last 2 years of the George W. Bush 
administration, the American economy slid into a recession. It became 
the greatest recession in America's recent history, since the Great 
Depression of the 1930s.
  By December of 2008, in January of 2009, the last months of the Bush 
administration, we were losing over 700,000 jobs, 750,000 jobs a month. 
President Obama came in and my two colleagues here--I was not yet in 
Congress, having just joined last November--you put through the 
stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It 
stabilized. It stopped the slide, and people began to go back to work, 
with the largest, middle class tax cut in America's history, the 
largest middle class tax cut ever in American history. There were major 
investments in infrastructure. The result, after 18 months, was 2.8 
million Americans working that otherwise would have been out of work or 
had gone back to work; 2.8 million Americans.
  We see that here. We see the improvement, the monthly reduction in 
the number of people losing jobs. So that by this year, 2010, after 1 
year of the stimulus program and other programs that were all voted on 
by Democrats with virtually no Republican support, we began to see job 
growth; not enough, not nearly enough.
  We are now shifting gears. We are into the second half. We have 
stabilized the first half. We have reached some improvement, and now, 
now it is the second half.
  In the second half, manufacturing matters. This is the heart, the 
soul, the strength of the American economy, and it is where the middle 
class makes it. It happens to be, as you so eloquently pointed out, Dr. 
Kagen, it is where the middle class lost. When those manufacturing jobs 
were shipped overseas, middle class lost. We will make it in America 
when we manufacture once again in America.
  Both of my colleagues here have laid out some very important 
elements. One is the international competition, and I would like, Dr. 
Kagen, if you could review with us the international competition and 
the disadvantage of one--both hands tied behind the American 
manufacturer's back.
  Dr. Kagen.
  Mr. KAGEN. We are beginning to build a better Nation. We are 
beginning to put people back to work. There is a great deal of work to 
do, but our trade deals have to be balanced. Where I come from, people 
don't want fair trade or free trade; they want it to be balanced.
  And if China is sending us a ship with $50 million worth of goods 
that they produced and unloading it for sale here in the United States, 
then they should purchase from our manufacturers, from our workers, $50 
million worth of goods, again, to take back to their country. We have 
to balance our trade deals.
  But it is hard to balance a trade deal when the country manipulates 
its currency and begins with a 20 to 40 percent price advantage just 
because they are cheating on the price of their money. It is hard to 
balance a trade deal when China is subsidizing foreign investors to 
come in and gives them taxes for free, a free ride for several years. 
It is hard to have a balanced trade deal when you have got value-added 
taxes that benefit the Chinese Government's corporations.
  When you understand that there is no difference between the 
government and a corporation, I don't know of a single company that can 
defeat a government, especially one that is manipulating its currency. 
You know they have got a ``buy China'' policy.
  We need to balance this deal, have a level playing field, and it 
begins by manufacturing, giving our manufacturers the tax advantages 
they need to create American jobs for American workers. For too long, 
for too long the Republican tax policy has been to reward the wealthy, 
not those who are working.
  If you reward work instead of wealth, we can begin to not just 
balance our trade deals, but keep people in their own homes to solve 
our housing crisis and make certain that people have a positive future 
once again.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Before I turn to the gentlewoman from Ohio, I want to 
pick up that tax policy. American tax policy, probably set by both 
Democrats and Republicans in the past decades, gave an advantage to 
United States corporations that would offshore American jobs with a tax 
credit, $14.5 billion a year.
  The end of those credits came to the floor a month ago on a piece of 
legislation that would end those tax breaks that American corporations 
have for offshoring jobs. The Democrats voted to move that to the 
Senate. Not one Republican voted for ending those despicable tax breaks 
that the corporations have.
  There is a difference here. Where do you stand? For whom do you 
fight?
  Now, the gentlewoman from Ohio started us off talking about how we 
might use our tax money more wisely. Would you please bring us back to 
the reality of what's going on in your district and how this would 
benefit your district.
  Ms. SUTTON. Well, certainly.
  The taxpayers in my district and the businesses, the workers there 
and across this country, I believe, expect that, when we use those tax 
dollars, that we use them to buy things and build things in America.
  This is about their money and making sure we put it to work for them 
by putting them to work and not about shipping the money to foreign 
countries so that they can produce the products there and then ship 
them back over here.
  So today, something very important happened and was passed. It is 
called the End the Trade Deficit Act, sort of to put a punctuation mark 
on this. You know, our trade deficit has continued to grow for all of 
the reasons that we talked about, and our trade deficit increased to 
$42.3 billion for May of this year, up from the previous month. The 
deficit with China, alone, in May was $22.3 billion, up from $19.3 
billion in April.
  So this Make It in America program--and it is not a flash in the pan. 
This is an ongoing mission that we are on because we are going to 
revitalize U.S. manufacturing, and we are going to stand up for U.S. 
manufacturing against unfair competition.
  You know, the issue of currency manipulation--we have to, when we 
come back, I urge everyone, and I know you guys are on board, to bring 
the bill that is part of Make It in America called the currency 
manipulation--end currency manipulation, End Chinese Currency 
Manipulation bill to the House floor for a vote so we can see who wants 
to stand with U.S. manufacturing. And I am fairly certain that those on 
this side of the aisle are prepared to do it.
  I think we do have some even on the other side of the aisle who are 
prepared to do it. But it is so critically important that we do take 
all of these steps on this multifaceted mission that we are on to make 
sure that our businesses and workers get a fair shake, because we know 
when they do, it

[[Page H6270]]

strengthens our economy. It strengthens our national security, and our 
folks will be able to make it in America.

                              {time}  2220

  Mr. GARAMENDI. How correct you are. And we would reach out to our 
Republican colleagues and ask them to join us on Making It in America.
  We've had enough of our tax dollars shipped overseas to buy buses 
that are manufactured overseas, to buy trains and ferries. Our tax 
dollars need to be spent at home. If it's a water system, a sanitation 
system, a bus, if it's our tax dollars, make it in America. If it's our 
tax dollars, then let's use it to make our future energy supplies--wind 
turbines, solar systems--make it in America. It's our mission, in the 
second half of this session, to make it in America.
  Mr. RAHALL. Madam Speaker, we in West Virginia understand well the 
need for this ``Make it in America'' initiative. Even as we diversify, 
from broadband infrastructure to tourism marketing, we all know what 
the manufacturing center means for good paying jobs. The leap from a 
hard days work, producing the best products in the world, to a service-
based industry is a far stretch--one that leaves our national security 
at risk. The House Democrats understand the need for a plan and action 
to increase American manufacturing and create new American jobs.
  When we ``Make It in America,'' we create jobs to lead the world 
economy. First and foremost, we must ensure that every nook and cranny 
of the federal government is geared towards American products, American 
companies and American workers. In 2007, the Defense Department alone 
allowed over 14,000 contracts for goods and services to go to foreign 
companies. That's $5.7 billion American tax dollars we waved goodbye 
to. We've got to shut the floodgates on the tidal wave of taxpayer's 
dollars flowing overseas, and shore up our contracts for goods and 
services bought by the federal government and provided by American 
workers. I'm a long time advocate for `Buy American' provisions in law, 
but a concentrated effort will sharpen the focus on a fair deal for our 
workers and small business and industries.
  A global economy doesn't mean a one way trade route for American 
capital. There's no question we can compete here at home, under fair 
rules applied to all competitors. Federal agencies should be partners, 
not competitors, with our workers. The first step towards this 
realignment is the National Manufacturing Strategy. We passed 
Congressman Lipinski's bill that calls for a National Manufacturing 
Strategy and will create the high-skill, high-wage jobs of the future--
promoting American competitiveness, innovation, and exports.
  The manufacturing sector generates two-thirds of our exports, and 
employs millions of Americans. This manufacturing strategy goes hand-
in-hand with the newly formed Buy American Caucus, of which I am a 
member, by working to promote American jobs; reclaim American 
leadership in manufacturing; support small businesses; and close 
loopholes in current law to ensure that the federal government is 
purchasing American-made products.
  Our efforts have the potential to assist manufacturing businesses 
throughout southern West Virginia. We are proud of those manufacturers 
who continue to support the economy and workers, and are particularly 
proud of those in the Third District of West Virginia. We have to 
create a continued demand for American products and create a rebirth of 
our state and nation as the manufacturing world leader. That effort 
must start with buying American products here at home.

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