Supporting America's Smaller Businesses

Floor Speech

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Ms. DAVIDS of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as we consider legislation to strengthen supply chains and to stand up for our small businesses. For years, we have been too reliant on goods made in other countries.

The pandemic has exacerbated and exposed that reality. We have seen shortages from personal protective equipment to ventilators and semiconductor chips. Those supply chain weaknesses continue to contribute to rising prices and inflation.

We should be making more in America. We have many small businesses in Kansas and across the country that are willing and able to step up to the plate.

As we take up the America COMPETES Act this week, legislation drafted with both parties and aimed at creating jobs, addressing inflation, and strengthening American manufacturing, it is absolutely essential that we include small and medium manufacturers in our consideration.

In my district, the Kansas Third, we have businesses who pivoted their entire production lines to fill gaps in our medical supply chains, helping protect frontline healthcare workers amid significant shortages in personal protective equipment early in the pandemic. At that time, nurses and hospital staff were having to reuse masks and gowns, putting themselves at incredible risk.

We were slowed by our reliance on foreign-made supplies, and here we had small businesses that were ready to help if we had just given them a chance.

The America COMPETES Act includes a program to build a stable and adaptable supply chain for our national stockpile, one that is flexible enough to react in emergency situations without completely breaking down, as it did before. As we work to build that flexibility, it would be a mistake to shut out the producers we have right here at home.

My amendment is going to ensure that when we are restocking and restructuring our strategic national stockpile that we are working with a range of businesses. It would require that smaller manufacturers get a seat at the table, not just big corporations, because I can tell you from experience that they stand ready to pitch in, ready to train and employ our workers. It is our job to ensure they get the chance to do just that.

The America COMPETES Act is a major opportunity to deal in our domestic industries and workers. It is an opportunity to address root causes of inflation and bring down our costs long term, one particularly important example being incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. And it is an opportunity for us to invest in our global standing, putting our workers, farmers, manufacturers, and businesses on a level playing field with countries like China and other nations.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and to support small manufacturers.

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