[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16324-16326]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              OUTSOURCING

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I appreciate the comments of Senator Klobuchar, 
who has been a leader on moving forward on this legislation on food 
safety. It is so important to our country. I am so sorry that pretty 
much one obstructionist, or a whole party of obstructionists, 
unfortunately, have blocked this bill, and one Senator in particular 
has kept us from moving on this bipartisan bill. It is one of the sad 
chapters of this Senate that a small minority, again, can block us from 
doing the things we ought to do in our jobs, what we ought to be doing.
  I want to talk for a moment about some positive developments in my 
State. A couple of weeks ago I went to Lordstown, OH. It has a General 
Motors plant. I believe Governor Strickland was asked to drive the 
first red Cruze, Chevy Cruze, their highest mileage new car, off the 
line, followed by a white Cruze and a blue Cruze. You know the 
symbolism of that and the beauty of that and the inspiration of that in 
many ways was all about what has happened in the last 18\1/2\ months to 
the auto industry.
  I am particularly proud. I do not come to the floor and endorse one 
particular company ever. I am not doing that. I am proud of this 
because of what it looked like a year and a half ago.
  Now, 18 months ago we remember what happened: Barack Obama took the 
oath of office. The banks had about imploded. We knew the financial 
system was close to collapse. We knew the auto industry was facing 
bankruptcy.
  President Obama took office in the midst of losing 700,000 jobs a 
months. President Bush was leaving office, having left us--the largest 
in history at

[[Page 16325]]

that time--the largest budget deficit in the history of the United 
States of America. That is what we started with 18\1/2\ months ago.
  When you think about what it meant in the auto industry--I know my 
State is considered an auto State. New Mexico may not be, but New 
Mexico has some number of component manufacturers and a lot of car 
dealerships.
  The car dealerships in Taos or Albuquerque or Truth or Consequences 
or anywhere necessarily in the State are often so involved in the 
community: helping Little League, helping scholarships, all of the 
kinds of things the good citizens, especially auto dealers, do. But I 
think about what this meant.
  So 18 months ago when this auto industry was about to crash, 
literally--pardon the pun--what it would have meant in my State, it 
would have meant tens of thousands of retirees would have possibly lost 
significant amounts of pension and health care they had as 25-, 30-, 
40-year employees of General Motors or Chrysler.
  We know it would have meant a huge number of lost jobs, thousands of 
lost jobs, just in the auto companies, let alone all of the suppliers, 
what are called tier 1 suppliers, tier 2 suppliers, those small 
companies, small- and medium-sized companies that are suppliers. They 
are machine shops, tool-and-die makers, stamping plants, all kinds of 
companies that make components that go into the auto industry, that go 
into the trucks and the cars. They would have gone out of business.
  We knew all of this was about to happen. Because of the Recovery Act, 
and because this government decided, President Obama and the Democrats 
in the House and Senate--in spite of the naysayers, in spite of the 
people out there who said: Let the market work; if the auto industry 
collapses, it is the market speaking. Just let the market work. Let the 
free market work. If we had listened to them, listened to the 
naysayers, listened to the people who are the doom-and-gloom crowd, my 
State would have gone into a depression. We would have lost thousands 
of auto jobs. Senior citizens relying on those pensions and health care 
would have been, in many cases, abandoned. The dealerships, the 
component manufacturers, and the auto company employees themselves 
would have been out of work.
  As I said, we did not listen to the conservative politicians and say: 
Let the market work. We did not listen to the naysayers. We did not 
listen to the doom-and-gloom crowd who said: It is not our problem. The 
Federal Government has no business.
  Well, the fact is, the Federal Government invested in the auto 
industry. Instead of losing 700,000 jobs a month, as we were when 
President Obama took office 18, 19 months ago, we are now gaining jobs. 
We have gained jobs in this country in the private sector for 7 or 8 
straight months. Not enough, not even close to what we want to do in 
New Mexico or Ohio or any other State, but clearly we have seen some 
good things happen.
  What has happened in the auto industry is particularly interesting. 
At this GM plant in Lordstown, right where I was--and I have been there 
many times, where I was a couple of weeks ago with Governor 
Strickland--we have seen--there are 4,500 people working in that plant 
now. They just added 1,100 jobs to do the third shift of the Chevrolet 
Cruze. But what is particularly great about that, if you are the 
Senator from Ohio, is in Defiance, OH, western Ohio, near the Indiana 
border, is where they make the engines for the Chevy Cruze.
  If you travel northeast of there to a Toledo suburb called Northwood, 
that is where they make the bumpers for the Chevy Cruze. If you go into 
the city of Toledo, that is where they make the transmission for the 
Chevy Cruze. Then you go east to Parma, OH, that is where they stamped 
most of the components for the Chevy Cruze.
  Then you drive east to the Youngstown area, Mahoney Valley to 
Lordstown. They do some of the stamping, and that is where they do the 
assembly. So hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of new jobs were 
created--well, thousands--up and down the supply chain, from the most 
basic bolt, the most basic component in an engine or the most basic 
component in a car door or anywhere else in that car, to the ultimate 
assembly in Lordstown. It means thousands of jobs.
  Again, if we had listened to the doom-and-gloom crowd and the 
naysayers, it never would have happened. We also need to learn from 
history. When government is in partnership with the private sector, 
with private businesses and communities, some pretty good things can 
happen. Just take this for a moment.
  For 8 years, January 1993 to January 2001, President Clinton, during 
his time as President, we saw a 22 million private net increase, 22 
million job increase.
  We also saw wages go up in this country, and President Clinton left 
us with the largest budget surplus in American history: 22 million 
jobs, an increase in wages, largest budget surplus in American history.
  In the next 8 years, January 20, 2001, to January 20 at noon, 2009, 
those 8 years of President Bush, 1 million jobs increased, 1 million, 
not even enough to take care of our sons and daughter who have 
graduated from high school and are entering the workforce, coming out 
of the Army, coming out of high school, coming out of college, not even 
enough to absorb the population growth.
  Wages were actually flat or went down for the great majority of 
Americans during those 8 years, and President Bush left us with record 
budget deficits. So 22 million jobs, 1 million jobs, incomes went up, 
incomes flat and went down, biggest budget surplus in American history, 
record budget deficit under the Bush years.
  So if you go back further, you hear the Republicans, my colleagues on 
the other side of the aisle, talk about this philosophy: Cut taxes on 
the rich, and you cut taxes on corporations, you are going to have job 
growth. Well, nice try. It is not what happened.
  After the Ronald Reagan tax cuts for the rich in 1981, the next 16 
months we had declining employment in this country, 16 months in a row 
of lost jobs after this tax cut, which was going to make the economy 
take off. Fast-forward 1993, President Clinton. He had some tax 
increases on the wealthiest taxpayers. He also had some budget cuts, 
and he moved toward a balanced budget.
  Employment took off--22 million jobs. President Bush, 2001, big tax 
cuts for the rich in 2001, big tax cuts for the rich in 2003, basically 
no real significant increase in jobs during those 8 years. Now, the 
mantra of the Republicans, those who are on the ballot this year and 
those who sit across the aisle from me, again, is, let's do more tax 
cuts because that increases jobs.
  It does not. What increases jobs is investment in education, 
investment in health care, investment in infrastructure, reducing the 
deficits--all the things that Republicans pay lipservice to but in the 
end simply do not deliver on.
  We have an opportunity next Monday. This coming Monday, we are going 
to bring a bill to the floor that is the other part of this: How do we 
create jobs? That is, we are going to begin to finally move to fix some 
of our tax laws, and then next will be some of our trade laws so that 
we quit losing so many jobs to China.
  Mr. President, 30 percent of our GDP in 1980 was manufacturing, 
almost 30 percent. Now it is down to 11 percent of our gross domestic 
product. A big part of that is trade policy, which the Presiding 
Officer opposed when he was in the House of Representatives, PNTR with 
China and the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and before that, 
when I was in the House, my first year, the North American Free Trade 
Agreement, which we opposed.
  Those trade agreements, coupled with tax law, has encouraged 
companies to move overseas. Those days have to be behind us. What we 
are going to do on Monday night is vote on legislation that will begin 
to turn the corner, will begin to take away those tax incentives for 
companies to go overseas and replace them with tax incentives for 
businesses that manufacture in Shelby, OH, and in Ravenna, OH, and 
Zanesville, Ohio, and all over this country.

[[Page 16326]]

  At the same time, President Obama, the first President in years in 
either party, is beginning to enforce trade law. We know what that 
meant in Findlay, OH, when he enforced trade laws with the 
International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, on 
Chinese tires that had been dumped, sold illegally into this country.
  When President Obama enforced those trade rules against the breaking 
of the law that the Chinese Government did, immediately we saw several 
hundred jobs created--100 of them in Findlay, OH--several hundred jobs 
created all over the country.
  When the President did the same thing on something called oil country 
tubular steel--it is the steel, the seamless steel pipes, these tubes 
that are used for oil and gas drilling--we immediately saw a 
commitment, an investment, which will result in 400 jobs in Mahoning 
Valley in northeast Ohio, and a good many jobs in Lorain, OH, a city I 
lived in for a decade west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.
  We were able to do that because, finally, it is the Democrats, 
working with President Obama, who are enforcing trade law and beginning 
to change tax policy so we see job creation.
  I do not care where you live in this country. People are just sick 
and tired of not being able to find American-made products. This is 
made in China. This is made in India. This is made in Brazil. This is 
made in Honduras. This is made in Bangladesh. Nothing against those 
countries, but oftentimes, especially the Chinese, their government is 
gaming the system. They are not playing fair on trade. We need a whole 
different trade regimen. We need a whole different tax system so 
American companies are no longer going to China to find cheap labor, 
weak environmental rules, unenforced worker safety rules, and can 
produce and then send it back to America.
  I think this is the first time since colonial days where the business 
community, where a lot of large manufacturing companies--and I make the 
distinction between large and small because small manufacturing 
companies do not do this but the large manufacturing companies. Ten 
years ago they came to lobby Congress to pass the permanent normal 
trade relations with China. Ten years ago this month the Senate, for 
all intents and purposes, sold out American manufacturing. They passed 
PNTR, it was called. It used to be called most favored nation status 
with China. They changed the name because it did not sound very good.
  Congress passed that 10 years ago. What that has meant is our trade 
deficit with China has almost tripled in that period of time. What the 
business community has done, the large companies have done, is this: 
They lobbied to change the rules. Then they moved production from St. 
Clairsville, OH, and Portsmouth, OH, and Springfield, OH, to Shanghai 
and Wuhan and Beijing, and Huang Jo, China, to make those products. 
Then they sold them back to the United States.
  I don't think since colonial times that large companies in one 
country have adopted that kind of business plan where you move 
production out of your country, make it somewhere else, add all that 
value to those products, and then sell them back into the home country 
where the corporation headquarters is located. It doesn't make sense 
for us. It means far too many lost jobs.
  I will give an example. There is an industry in which many Ohio 
companies are involved, the paper industry. There is a specific kind of 
paper called a glossy paper used in magazines. China didn't have that 
industry. It is called coated paper. Twelve years ago China did not 
have a coated paper industry. They began it similar to the last decade 
when they built wind and solar, clean energy industries, and somehow 
started to lead the world, as we have unilaterally disarmed. Now they 
buy most of their pulp in Brazil. So they grow the trees, cut down the 
trees in Brazil. They ship the wood to Chinese paper mills. They 
manufacture the coated paper in China. They ship it back to the United 
States. They underprice American paper companies which buy the wood 
sometimes within a few miles or a few hundred miles of where they are, 
which tells me, even though wages are less in China, even though they 
don't have much enforcement of environmental rules or worker safety 
rules, they are gaming the system with currency, with subsidies, free 
land, all the kinds of things the Chinese Communist Government does.
  Until we enforce trade laws so we play fair and compete, we will 
continue to lose manufacturing jobs. That is why Monday night is an 
important first step as this Senate moves forward on dealing with the 
problem of outsourcing jobs. There are few things we can do in this 
body more important than beginning to rebuild manufacturing. We know 
how to make things. My State is the third largest manufacturing State 
in the country, behind only California and Texas, which are two and 
three times the size of Ohio in population. We know how to make big and 
little things. We have the largest ketchup manufacturing plant in the 
world in Freemont. We have the largest insulation company making 
fiberglass anywhere in the United States in Newark. We know how to make 
things in our State. We just need the opportunity, a level playing 
field, tax law and trade law that puts the United States of America on 
a level playing field. We know we can compete with anybody. We just 
need the opportunity.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CASEY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________