[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16524-16525]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CREATING JOBS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the most important part of our jobs as 
Senators is to create jobs in our States. That is especially true in 
times such as these, when so many are reeling from so much economic 
pain.
  Right now, as I speak, the President is signing into law our small 
business jobs bill. As soon as he does, $15 billion in tax relief and 
hundreds of millions of dollars in loans will be on the way to 
America's small businesses, which we all know are the engines of our 
economy, engines that will power recovery.
  Every penny of that help is paid for, and it will not add a single 
dime to the deficit. I spoke to the Administrator of the Small Business 
Administration on Thursday or Friday--I don't know the exact day. She 
indicated to me that there were 1,000 applications for small business 
loans that will be completed within hours of signing that bill. The 
resources have simply not been there for her to do the work that is 
necessary. One thousand small businesses will be able to go forward on 
programs they have, programs dealing with retail sales, wholesaling. 
There will be businesses that will be exporters, importers, and any 
variation of small businesses that you can imagine--restaurants. This 
will create many jobs immediately. So I was happy when I heard that 
from her. I knew that was going to be the case, but I wanted to hear it 
from her.
  When that funding gets to where it is going, as many as one-half 
million people who are looking for work today will soon be on their way 
to a new job. We fought so hard for this bill against such stubborn 
minority opposition because we know we have to do everything we can to 
get people back to work. That means we have to work just as hard to 
create new jobs as we have to protect existing ones. It means that when 
a corporation tries to take away someone's job in Nevada and send it 
halfway around the world, we have to stop them. We cannot let the 
greedy CEOs do that anymore, and that is exactly what we are going to 
do this week. We are going to take away the incentives that our 
corporations have to send our jobs overseas and give them powerful new 
incentives to keep the jobs right here in America.
  Right now, our Tax Code actually rewards corporations for offshoring 
jobs. It is hard to comprehend that, but it is true. It helps them pay 
the costs of closing their plants and offers them tax breaks if they 
move production to other countries. The current system even encourages 
companies to ask their employees to train their foreign replacements. 
Think about how an American feels about that. That is a slap in the 
face to hard-working Americans. It is no way to get our economy back on 
its feet and certainly no way to get Americans back to work.
  Our bill rights this wrong, and it is going to help revive our 
Nation's manufacturing industry. We are giving companies the right kind 
of tax cut, a payroll tax holiday as a reward for bringing jobs back 
home. So far, we have seen little to indicate that our friends on the 
other side of the aisle have any interest in protecting American jobs. 
Instead, we have seen them fight with great enthusiasm to keep 
corporate tax loopholes as wide open as possible.
  Let's use this week to remember whom we work for: middle-class 
families and the hard-working people who built this country and will 
rebuild it toward recovery; middle-class families and not corporations 
that take advantage of tax loopholes at their expense; American workers 
and not foreign companies that want to take away their jobs. That is 
the most important thing we can do.
  Nothing is more important to me, as a Senator, than the work to 
create jobs in our States.
  Will the Chair now announce morning business.

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