Jumpstart our Business Strength (Jobs) Act

JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS STRENGTH (JOBS) ACT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in Illinois, and I would say in Iowa, in North Dakota, in Connecticut, in Nevada-you pick the town, you pick the spot on Main Street, and you pick the first person walking by and ask them the following question: Is it a good thing for America that good-paying jobs are now going overseas, that businesses are outsourcing their jobs to foreign countries and taking jobs away from Americans?

You pick it, and I will stand by the results of that informal poll anywhere in America. You know the answer.

True or false: Is it good or bad for American companies to be eliminating jobs in the United States and outsourcing them overseas? That is what is before us. That is the question.

If you think the answer is obvious, it is not obvious to the President, nor to his economic advisers because the President's economic adviser, Mr. Mankiw, reported to Congress on his behalf a few weeks ago that it was, indeed, a good thing we are now outsourcing jobs to other countries.

I am sure you are saying: I expect to hear that from DURBIN because he sits on the other side of the aisle, and he is bound to misrepresent what the President's Council of Economic Advisers says to Congress, so allow me to read:

One facet of increased service trade is the increased use of offshore outsourcing in which a company relocates labor intensive service industry functions to another country.

He goes on to say:

The basic economic forces behind the transactions are the same, however, when a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically.

The commonsense answer to the question about whether American jobs outsourced overseas are good for America that you are going to get on the streets in any city of America is not the same conclusion reached by the Bush administration in their economic report.

What was the reaction on Capitol Hill to Mr. Mankiw's statement that outsourcing jobs to foreign producers would be a good thing?

The Republican leaders, including the Republican Speaker of the House, ran from this report like a scalded cat. They disavowed it and said he was wrong. He put out 2 or 3 days' worth of corrections about it.

But the bottom line is, if you look at what has happened in America, Senator Dodd's amendment addresses the reality. More and more service jobs-good-paying service jobs-are going overseas.

In my apartment in Chicago Saturday afternoon at 4 o'clock, the phone rings. It happened to me twice, two different Saturdays. I do not know why 4 o'clock is the right time, but maybe as I tell the story you will understand why it is.

Mr. Durbin?

Yes.

This is Nancy. I wanted to call and tell you that your Discover card is on the way.

Nancy, I didn't order a Discover card.

Well, we are going to send you one anyway.

Nancy, where are you calling from?

And Nancy says to me: I'm calling from Delaware.

Really, what city in Delaware, Nancy?

Pause.

I said New Delhi.

She said: No, Bangalore.

She was calling from India. She honestly acknowledged that, as did a caller a few weeks later. So major credit card companies, such as Visa and Discover, are starting to use callers in India and other countries in Asia to call into the United States. Those are jobs lost in America.

I visited India 2 weeks ago. I ran into a delightful woman in New Delhi who said she had a Ph.D. in mathematics, and she was working for an American brokerage company, Fidelity. I know Fidelity. I do business there. She handles their information technology in India. Is this good? Is it good for us to lose computer programmers, software engineers, good-paying high-tech jobs to India and China? I don't think it is such a good thing. But, frankly, the President's economic adviser says it is a healthy thing.

Senator Dodd comes in and with a very modest amendment says: Perhaps when it comes to our own Government work, we should draw the line on whether or not the Federal Government will give money to an entity which turns around and outsources jobs overseas. He makes exceptions. Senator Dodd, in his amendment, says if it is necessary for national security, then we will waive it, or if the service to be performed is not capable of being performed in the United States, we will waive it. I believe there is also a waiver if the country where the jobs are going to be placed allows the United States to contract for services there so there is some reciprocity.

This is an extremely reasonable and sensible amendment. But if you will listen to my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle, they are scared to death of this amendment. They do not want to vote on it. In their heart of hearts, they obviously agree with Mr. Mankiw. They think the outsourcing of jobs overseas is a healthy thing. I do not. But I would defy any of my colleagues to go home to Main Street-you pick the town-and defend it. Say to the people that the 4,000 jobs that leave IBM and go to India is a good thing for America. I don't believe it is.

Senator Dodd has made a modest proposal that says let's stop the bleeding. Let's start talking about jobs in America. Let's try to go beyond the obvious, and that is this economy is in recession and struggling to recover, and start talking about focusing on jobs in America.

I voted for free trade. I believe in trade. I believe globalization is as inevitable as gravity. It is happening. It is going to happen. But I continue to be concerned that when it comes to these trade agreements, the first thing our negotiators do, after we pass them into law, is to wave the white flag and say: We surrender; come take advantage of the United States. And people do.

It has happened to us time and again. It has happened to us in the manufacturing of durable goods. Steel is a good illustration. Japan, Brazil, and Russia dumped steel in the United States for years and ran companies out of business. It cost thousands of steelworker jobs. And the Clinton administration at that time sadly did little or nothing about it. The Bush administration imposed a tariff for a short time and recently removed it.

Frankly, our steel industry is, once again, not only weak but vulnerable because we are not taking a tough position in enforcing the trade agreements for which we voted.

I am for expanding trade but under rules that will be enforced so when people engage in unfair trade practices against the United States, we stand up immediately for the workers and businesses that are disadvantaged.

Look at the situation in China. My friend and colleague, Senator Schumer of New York, is coming forward with a bill, which I support, and I know the Presiding Officer is involved in it as well, which says the Chinese currency valuation gives them a 15- to 40-percent advantage over American manufacturers. What does it mean?

Companies in China are running American manufacturers out of business because they manipulate their currency. That is an unfair trade practice, and they are killing us with it.

They now enjoy a huge surplus of trade with the United States. The Senator from North Dakota said there was over $100 billion in Chinese trade surplus with the United States?

Mr. DORGAN. One hundred thirty billion dollars.

Mr. DURBIN. One hundred thirty billion dollars. Let me give a footnote to this conversation. Ten percent of all of the Chinese exports to the United States, $13 billion worth of Chinese goods, go to one company in the United States: Wal-Mart. So when a person goes into Wal-Mart and they see "made in China," do not be surprised. This is no longer a U.S.-flag-waving company. This is a company which sells Chinese goods that are cheap because they manipulate currency to the disadvantage of American producers.

Senator Dodd makes a proposal. He says when it comes to spending Government money, taxpayer money, we are going to ask a question: If someone is receiving this money, are they going to create jobs in the United States with it or jobs overseas? If they are going to create jobs overseas, no thanks, unless they meet one of the exceptions: National security, Presidential waiver, that sort of thing.

I say to the Senator from Connecticut, I will take this proposition to any town in Illinois, and I know what the answer is going to be. They are going to say to me: Senator, it is my taxpayer dollars, and it is not unreasonable for you to say that American workers should be employed with those dollars. That, I think, is a reasonable approach.

What did the Republican side and the administration come back with? Picture this: They have an amendment which says-and Senator Dodd can correct me if I do not represent this correctly-that the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Evans, a member of the President's Cabinet, will have the power to certify whether such an amendment, as Senator Dodd's amendment, will harm the American economy. If he so certifies that it "will harm the American economy," it will not go into effect.

Frankly, the amendment does not even say when he makes the certification. So the amendment guts the Dodd proposal. The President's Cabinet will certify exactly what they told us. They believe in outsourcing. They think it is healthy to have outsourcing of jobs overseas. So do my colleagues expect the President and the Secretary of the Commerce to defy his economic advisers? No way. They are going to say that the Dodd amendment is a bad thing, that it keeps jobs in America that should be going overseas where the companies would have to pay a lot less for the same services and goods.

I want to vote on the Dodd amendment. I want to defeat this attempt to give the Secretary of Commerce the power to gut it. I want to vote on it. I want my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to stand up and be counted, and I want them to go home and explain their vote. If they think it is unreasonable, as the Senator from Connecticut suggests, that taxpayer dollars be spent to encourage American jobs in America, I think they are going to find that the reception at home is not very positive. We have lost too many jobs in America, more jobs under this administration than any President since Herbert Hoover. I do not think that is a positive thing. I think it is a negative thing.

Senator Dodd makes a small but valiant and important effort to make certain that our jobs in America and our workers have a fighting chance, and I stand in support of his amendment.

Mr. DURBIN. I say to the Senator from Connecticut, we have trade adjustment assistance, which was enacted years ago, which says if a person loses their manufacturing job, a job that produces goods, to trade overseas, they will have an extra advantage in that we provide unemployment benefits and give an opportunity for retraining.

We are in a new world now, and the new world includes not just losing jobs producing goods but jobs involving services, and trade adjustment assistance does not apply. So the 4,000 computer programmers at IBM who gave their jobs to India and China cannot qualify for trade adjustment assistance. The Senator from Connecticut is right; they then get into fierce competition for the limited jobs available in America.

I have met with the men and women who are in the ranks of the unemployed, and they are finding it extremely difficult to find any job that pays nearly what they made before. The first casualty of unemployment is their health insurance, and then, of course, their home and their savings. All of these things are casualties as Congress not only is insensitive to this loss of jobs overseas, this outsourcing of jobs, but even fails to include unemployment insurance for these workers.

I say to the Senator from Connecticut-I will yield the floor because I see another colleague-if the election in November is a referendum on this report as to whether or not it is healthy for America to see jobs outsourced and sent overseas, bring it on.

If my colleagues think they can rationalize the sending of these jobs overseas because Mr. Mankiw and President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers happen to have some theoretical model behind them, they ought to take these wonderful Wall Street models to Main Street in America.

I hope before the end of the day we will count noses in the Senate on the Dodd amendment. Let us find out how many people buy the Mankiw vision of the world and how many people buy the reality of this world.