[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 119 (Monday, July 28, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4993-S4994]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BRING JOBS HOME ACT
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Bring Jobs Home
Act.
I am a blue-collar Senator. I grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood
in Baltimore during World War II where my father had a small
neighborhood grocery store.
We were the neighborhood of mom-and-pop businesses and factories. We
made liberty ships. We put out turbo steel to make the tanks. Glenn L.
Martin made the seaplanes that helped win the battle of the Pacific. We
were in the manufacturing business. But the blue-collar Baltimore of
World War II, Korea, and Vietnam just isn't what it used to be.
In the last decade, 2.4 million American jobs were shipped overseas.
Where did those jobs go? Those jobs are on a slow boat to China and a
fast track to Mexico. And why did they go?
In some cases, they went because of tax breaks that rewarded
corporations for moving manufacturing overseas. It is wrong to give
companies incentives to send jobs to other countries, especially when
millions of Americans are looking for work.
The current Tax Code is putting companies that keep their business
here, hire their workers at home, pay their share of taxes, and provide
health care to their employees, at a disadvantage.
We should be rewarding these companies with ``good guy'' tax breaks
for hiring and building their businesses right here in the United
States.
I have been on a jobs tour of Maryland. I visited bakeries,
microbreweries, and factories of small machine tool companies. I
visited Main Street, small streets, and rural communities.
I talked with business owners and their employees. These are ``good
guy'' businesses. They work hard and play by the rules. They have jobs
right here in the United States. They want to expand. They want to
hire. They need a government on their side and at their side.
That is why I am a proud cosponsor of the Bring Jobs Home Act. This
bill ends the loophole that gives companies a tax break for sending
jobs overseas.
The Bring Jobs Home Act tells companies: If you want to export jobs
out of America, you can't file a deduction
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for doing it. And it ensures the Tax Code can't be used to boost
corporate rewards at the expense of American workers.
Economic patriotism means bringing our jobs back home, bringing our
money back home, and standing up for America. So let's pass the Bring
Jobs Home Act and take an important step toward economic patriotism.
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