[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 37 (Wednesday, March 7, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1217-H1218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, this week is yet another week in which 
the House of Representatives has done virtually nothing. We heard my 
colleagues say they're repackaging some bills, putting a new bow around 
it, and they're going to pass it out of here. It's a press release for 
the week that they go home.
  After 14 months of running the House, Republicans haven't passed a 
real jobs bill. I'll give a great example.
  Economists and business people know that the biggest growth markets 
for American companies are exports. When we support U.S. exports, we 
are supporting American economics. But to support, we need the Export-
Import Bank.
  The Ex-Im Bank is a wonder. It provides extremely low-risk loans for 
businesses for exports, small business, medium-size, and big. The U.S. 
Export-Import Bank does not cost the American taxpayers one penny. It 
actually makes money, and it helps American businesses and workers sell 
hundreds of billions of dollars of American goods.
  In short, the Ex-Im Bank does just what we need to be doing: compete 
in the world economy with every tool we have.
  Study after study, year after year says that American export efforts 
need a huge overhaul.
  The President is doing all he can. He stood in this well and talked 
about it and has put forward proposals. But with simple legislation 
like the extension of the Export-Import Bank, we could do very much 
more. The Export-Import Bank is the center of our export strategy.

                              {time}  1100

  Now, how does it work?
  General Electric was recently bidding on a $500 million rail project 
to supply 150 diesel-electric locomotives to Pakistan. Pakistani 
officials told GE they preferred the GE locomotives and were willing to 
pay a premium for their high quality and dependability.
  There was a complication in that the bid from the Chinese locomotive 
manufacturer included a financing package with longer terms and 
drastically reduced fees that GE could not match on its own with 
private sector financing. The Export-Import Bank stepped in with a 
financing package that matched the Chinese financing package and 
enabled Pakistan to make its decision on a true apples-to-apples 
comparison of American and Chinese goods.
  We can win that one. We can win it always when we have a level 
playing field. That's what the Export-Import Bank does. It helps us 
compete.
  It's not just big businesses--GE, Boeing. It is also that every 
office in the Congress receives a letter once a month from the Export-
Import Bank, telling us of the companies that got that service in our 
districts. Nucor Steel, Brooks Rand Labs, NOVA Fisheries, American Wine 
Trade, Coastal Environmental Systems, International Lubricants, which 
are all in my district, receive the support of the Export-Import Bank. 
Without it, they could not have done business on their own.
  Now, in the past year, not only have we supported $34 billion worth 
of exports and 227,000 jobs in 3,300 companies in this country, but the 
U.S. Treasury

[[Page H1218]]

has gotten back $3.4 billion in fees from the loans they make.
  So where are we?
  Fifty countries in the world do this. China is using every tool 
available to it, including this one; but the House Republicans sit over 
there with their heads stuck in the sand, and we're about a month away 
from it expiring. We should increase the amount of money we allow the 
Export-Import Bank to use. Remember, the Export-Import Bank makes money 
on extremely low-risk loans to support tens of thousands of jobs in the 
United States. Why aren't we working on this kind of jobs legislation? 
Well, it's because the President asked for it. They are so determined, 
Mr. Speaker, to prevent the President from being reelected that they 
won't do what's good for American business and what's good for American 
workers.
  This is not partisan. These small companies are all over our 
districts. They want to make loans. They want to make sales overseas. 
They need the help of this bank, and the Republican leadership sits--I 
don't know where they are. They're somewhere in a dark room. Somebody 
should turn on the light and tell them there is some stuff to be done 
and to get out here and pass a real bill, not this jobs cockamamie 
thing we're going to do in a few days about repackaging stuff we've 
already passed.

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