[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13589-13590]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             MANUFACTURING

  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.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you very much.
  I want to spend this evening talking about manufacturing. 
Manufacturing matters. It is the foundation of any solid economy. It is 
the one part of the American economy that is seriously hurting, and 
with the great recession, the manufacturing sector in America has even 
further weakened.
  I would like to start this discussion with just a quick review of 
what has happened with regard to jobs over the last 3 years.
  If you will look here on this diagram, you will notice that, 
beginning in 2007, jobs in America slowed down and began to decline, so 
much so that, between 2007 and November of 2009, some 700,000 jobs a 
month were being lost in the fall and into the early winter of 2009.
  When the Obama administration came in, it was at the lowest possible 
point of some nearly 800,000 jobs lost in December and January. As the 
administration came in, very strong action was taken--the American 
Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February, which was an effort to move 
the economy and to put people back to work.

                              {time}  1700

  It was a major tax cut in that. The largest middle class tax cut ever 
was part of that. There was an effort to build roads and streets and 
infrastructure, and money was sent to school districts to continue to 
employ teachers and to stabilize the American economy. It worked. It 
worked, and slowly we saw a decline in the number of jobs that were 
lost. We didn't see an immediate growth in jobs. It didn't happen.
  It takes a long time to recover from a very serious recession, in 
fact, the worst recession since the 1930s. But over the months that 
followed, each month, improvement, improvement, improvement, so that 
this year we're beginning to see the effects of the efforts of the 
Democratic Congress, some Senate help, and the President in turning 
around the economy, so that in 2010, in the most recent months, we're 
beginning to see job growth. In fact, we've added nearly 600,000 jobs 
this year. No longer a decline; stabilization and now job growth.
  So with this background, we can begin to understand the efforts that 
are being made here in Congress by the Democratic Party and by the 
President.
  An historic piece of legislation was signed today that deals with the 
underlying collapse and the reasons for the collapse of the American 
economy and, indeed, the economy of the entire world. Today, around 
11:30 today, President Obama signed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer 
Protection Act, a very important law--clearly, the most important 
financial regulation law since the 1930s--designed specifically to deal 
with the underlying

[[Page 13590]]

problems that led to the collapse of Wall Street. Many parts of it, the 
kinds of excesses and gambling with our money that took place are going 
to be history. They're not going to be allowed under the new law. A 
consumer protection agency has been put in place to provide consumers 
with a place to go with their complaint and to protect them.
  Now, I know about this. I did this for two terms as the insurance 
commissioner in California. I know the importance of a consumer 
protection agency. We will soon have such an agency in the United 
States to help us, as consumers, to make sure that those mortgages are 
no longer subprime and hidden costs with hidden resets. All of that is 
in law now, as a result of what this Democratic Caucus did, and with 
the help of just three Republicans over in the Senate passing the Wall 
Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
  Now, what has been done is good, and I'll talk about some other bills 
as we go through this afternoon, but I want also to make it clear that 
it is not enough.
  Manufacturing matters. We need to rebuild the manufacturing base of 
America. We need to make it in America, and we can. I don't think 
there's a person on this floor that doesn't want to walk into a Target 
store and find ``Made in America'' labels on everything. We're not 
going to get there immediately, but we can sure get there much, much 
faster if we pass the correct laws.
  Joining me today in this discussion are several of my colleagues from 
around the Nation who are going to tell their story and what's 
happening in their community. I'd like to start on the far east coast. 
Now, I'm a west coast person. I'm from California, but there is another 
side to the continent. They'd like to say it's the right side, and 
sometimes they call California the left side.
  But my colleague from the great State of Pennsylvania would like to 
inform us about what's going on in Pennsylvania and, more specifically, 
in the Philadelphia area.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. FATTAH. I want to thank our leader on this effort of focusing in 
on what really matters economically in our country, which is 
manufacturing-based jobs. You know, in Philadelphia we have some 1,300 
manufacturers, and in your package of bills that I'm very happy to be a 
cosponsor of, you focus in on a number of issues: closing foreign tax 
loopholes, dealing with the question of mass transit, bus, rail, and 
also energy systems.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.

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