Make it in America

Floor Speech

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, I'm joined this evening by my friend from the great State of New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), and tonight we want to talk about the economy. We want to talk about what's happened over the last 2 years, how the United States economy has pulled itself out of the Great Recession and moving towards a much, much brighter future.

Earlier today, or actually yesterday, it was reported that our esteemed majority leader on the opposition side issued a statement taking credit that in just 3 weeks, the return of the Republican Party to the majority in this House has led to an astounding improvement in the economy. Well, that's kind of like--I don't know how exactly to describe that as to say that's just an overemphasis of the facts and a complete distortion of what actually has happened.

In the previous 2 years, as the Obama administration and the majority then held by the Democrats, my colleagues, worked to pull the American economy out of the Great Recession, the Republican minority voted ``no'' on every single bill to address the problem of the economy.

Starting with the American Recovery Act, the stimulus bill, not one Republican voted for it, even though that bill clearly, by all economic studies, created or allowed to continue well over 2 million jobs in this Nation. Infrastructure projects that were in my district and in every other district of this Nation were funded by that piece of legislation--yet not one Republican vote.

In the effort to reform Wall Street and to create a stable banking system in this Nation, once again, not one Republican vote. On all of the jobs bills, not one Republican vote. On every single piece of legislation that was passed, not one Republican--or only a handful of Republicans voted for those bills that actually stopped the Great Recession and began to return America to employment.

Now, really our subject matter for tonight is Make It In America. But before I get there, the comments that were made by the new majority leader deserve a complete analysis.

This is a chart of private sector growth that goes back to December of 2007 when the Great Recession began. And you can see here the decline of private sector jobs, 2007, 2008, until January of 2009, when the new Obama administration came into power.

At that point in January of 2009, the Recovery Act was passed and then followed by other pieces of legislation that turned the American economy around. And so the job loss began to taper off so that here we are in December of 2009, we began to see private sector job growth. These are not government jobs. These are all the private sector job growth.

So that beginning in the fall of 2009, we began to see the private sector come back to life and no longer shedding jobs but, rather, adding jobs. And every quarter since that time, all of 2010 and again now in January of 2011, we are continuing to add private sector jobs.

So the fact of the matter is--and you can say whatever you want to say--but at some point you really need to look at the facts. The facts were that every major bill to restart the American economy the Republican Party opposed in this House either by a unanimous ``no'' vote or by just a handful of Republicans voting for those pieces of legislation.

So that's really where we are today, is the situation where we are beginning to see the American economy come back. Job one for all 435 Members of this House, job one is jobs for Americans. American jobs now, not later. Our total emphasis must be on American jobs now.

And to bring those jobs back, one of the principal issues that the President will be talking about tomorrow is jobs and make it in America. It's high time that we can go once again to auto dealerships, to WalMart or Target and find ``Made in America'' on the products on those shelves. America still is a very strong manufacturing Nation, and in the strength of manufacturing we find America's economic strength.

And so we are setting out, as we did last year, on a set of policies that will rebuild the American manufacturing sector. And we call it the strategy to Make it in America, American jobs now in the manufacturing sector because manufacturing matters. This is where the great middle class jobs are to be found, in the manufacturing sector.

And actually back to the original thing I was talking about, General Motors, flat on its back, Chrysler, flat on their back, about to go bankrupt. The Obama administration, the Democratic Congress stepped forward and poured billions of dollars into those companies, stabilizing General Motors and tens of thousands of companies that were providing parts and services to General Motors. And now we find General Motors back healthy, strong, and reentering the private stock market. America, our public investment is now being recouped as General Motors once again becomes a strong, vibrant part of the American manufacturing sector.

How many Republicans supported that? Nary a vote. Nary a vote. But we have General Motors and Chrysler back on their feet, once again providing great manufacturing jobs. That's the theme of tonight's discussion, How can America make it? By making it in America, rebuilding the great manufacturing industries of America.

Joining me tonight is my colleague from the great State of Pennsylvania, and we are going to continue our discussion. So with permission of the Speaker, we would like to carry on a colloquy here. Frank?

Mr. PALLONE. Thank you. First of all, I wanted to thank my colleague from California for coming down here tonight and many nights and talking about the Make it in America agenda and why manufacturing matters. And the fact of the matter is that manufacturing, there was a recent report out that said that manufacturing, last year for the first time more jobs were created in manufacturing than were lost. And I think that was the first time in 10 years. And we had, as you know, I think you mentioned over a million private sector jobs created in 2010.

I don't like to talk about how wonderful everything is, because I know that it's not. I know that unemployment continues to be high, and many of my constituents talk to me all the time about how hard it is to find a job and how difficult it is for them to make ends meet; but the fact of the matter is that we are improving things. And we are beginning to see signs of the recovery; and most importantly, we are actually seeing more manufacturing jobs. So anybody says to me, well, you can't make things in America anymore, I simply say look at the facts. The facts are that manufacturing jobs are on the rise.

You know, I wanted to say, I was amazed today because I came down to the floor, we came in, I guess, we had debate around 5:15 and then we voted around 6:30, and I look at the agenda for the week, and we are now into the fourth week of the Republican majority in the House, and to my knowledge not a single thing has been done or has been proposed to be done this week that would actually create jobs or address the economy.

In fact, I was listening to the debate on this budget resolution, and one of your colleagues from California, Mr. Dreier, started talking about the deficit and health care, the health care repeal again. You know, for 3 weeks, or at least for 2 weeks, and 1 week of course we had the tragedy with our colleague Gabby Giffords, but for the last 3 weeks all the talk has been about repealing health care reform, which of course is not going to happen because the Senate's never going to take it up and the President is never going to sign it. So it's a complete waste of time. And he was talking again about how that's going to reduce the deficit, the repeal would reduce the deficit.

And I got up and I said, well, it's just the opposite. The CBO, which at least has provided us with numbers--your budget resolution that's coming up tomorrow that the Republican have doesn't have any numbers--but we know that the CBO told us that the health care reform actually reduces the deficit over the

next 10 years by $230 and a trillion dollars in the second decade. And I said, you know, what is your plan? What is the Republican plan to reduce the deficit? What is the Republican plan to create jobs? What is the Republican plan to help the economy? And I don't see anything.

I mean, all I see is, again, 3 weeks on repealing health care reform, now some budget resolution that has no numbers about, you know, what the budget's actually going to be, and nothing to indicate how it's really going to create jobs or reduce the deficit. And then I saw that on Wednesday we are taking up a resolution which will repeal the Presidential election public financing system, which again is nothing but another corporate giveaway, because what it means is that if we don't have public financing of the Presidential elections, then we are probably going to rely more and more on these corporate ads, these secret corporate ads that were used this last November that we don't even know where the money came from. It's all corporate money. And, again, I don't see anything being done by our Republican colleagues to address the issue of jobs.

Now, on the other hand we have the President and you, Mr. Garamendi, talking about this every day. I mean, the President, you know, we sort of got a little prelude to what he is going to do in the State of the Union tomorrow, but the whole focus is going to be on jobs. And we will wait and see, but that's what we are hearing. We are hearing it's going to be about innovation; it's going to be about investment in things like R&D, in transportation infrastructure, in education, a vision for the future that trains Americans for better jobs, that creates the infrastructure, the mass transit, the highways so that our goods can travel around the country, the R&D to put us ahead.

You know, in my district a lot of R&D is done in the manufacturing of drugs and new products, medical devices. I mean, this is what the President's talking about. And I assume that my colleague from New York's going to talk about his visit to your district, which was all job oriented. And then when the President, or Premier, of China came, President Obama's whole message to him was you know, you got to let in our exports. You got to lower the barriers so that we can create things here and export them to China because you have to open your markets.

So, you know, the President like a laser beam is focusing on jobs. I know the Democrats in the House with the Make it in America agenda are focusing on jobs. I don't think you mentioned it, but I have a paper here that says that this week, Congressman Garamendi, you are going to address two Make it in America bills. Maybe you should talk about that, and Mr. Tonko can talk about the President's visit to his district. But all our focus is on creating jobs, and I don't hear anything from the other side of the aisle, from the Republicans on this issue.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much, Mr. Pallone, for pointing out the facts. The facts are that 4 weeks into this and not one discussion from our Republican colleagues about the central issue of America, which is jobs, how are we going to create jobs.

You are quite correct, our colleague from the great State of New York, which was and is and will be an even greater manufacturing center, General Electric, Schenectady, New York. You wouldn't know where that is, Mr. Tonko, would you? If you do, please join us and tell us about it.

Mr. TONKO. Well, you know, it's great to represent Schenectady, which is dubbed The City that Lights and Hauls the World. It was the birthplace of an energy revolution over a century ago. And to have the President visit just the other day, on Friday, to tout the efforts at GE, where he speaks to the vibrancy of American manufacturing. You know, we lost a third of manufacturing jobs during the decade that preceded this administration. I think it was through neglect.

Mr. GARAMENDI. That was the George W. Bush administration.

Mr. TONKO. Right, and I think it was through neglect on manufacturing. They focused on the service sector, primarily the financial services. They ignored agriculture, they ignored manufacturing, and now we are paying the price. Even though we lost a third of the manufacturing jobs in this country, we are still perched as number one in the global race. However, if we are to allow that neglect to continue, we would eventually fall out of the number one position.

So the 4.6 million jobs lost, manufacturing jobs lost due to that neglect, that trend has to be turned around, and I was so delighted to hear the President speak to a progressive agenda, a proactive quality, to the tone he was establishing at that center with his speech. He talked about the strength of America's manufacturing and how we can impose a strong uplift for the middle class of this country.

You know, 66 percent of the wealth that was generated, of the recovery during 2001 and 2007, went to 1 percent, of the top 1 percent of wealth in this country. So they accumulated all that wealth, and it's middle class America that needs to get that clout now. We can do that because the investment in R&D, the investment in basic research that transforms into jobs that allows us to be more productive in our starter-up small businesses and in our big industries like GE.

If we introduce a soundness of basic research in R&D that then equates into jobs that translates into an empowerment of the middle class. I think that's an important message that was shared by this President, and the Nation accepted that speech. It was shared across this country, and it was emanating from GE, from the floor, from the factory floor where innovation and invention were coming from the working class on the assembly line.

It was their ideas, their creative genius that allowed us to have all the mills in that Erie Canal corridor that I so proudly represent become the epicenters of innovation and invention in their heyday. That is still within our DNA. That is our pioneer spirit that is uniquely American. The President wants to tap into that spirit, and he wants us to be that innovation economy.

You know, the other day, many of us on this floor here shared in the fiftieth anniversary celebration of JFK, that remarkably strong and powerful and inspirational inaugural address. And so many people highlighted many of the challenges that President Kennedy issued in that address, amongst them, exploring the heavens, exploring the heavens.

And what it did was empower us, just the tone he established, enabled us as a nation to embrace with a great degree of passion a resolve to win that race. And we entered that global race in space to win it. And we won it, and we unleashed untold, untold amounts of technology, science and technology that has strengthened every dynamic of life.

Here, fast forward some 40 years later, some 40-plus years later, a rather youthful President is challenging a nation to enter a global race, this time on the clean energy economy, the innovation economy. We should have within us the fortitude to go forward and invest in a way that allows us to empower our working families, the middle class of this country, through investment, in soundness of manufacturing that enables us to build it in America, make it in America again and be proud of that.

So, Representative Garamendi, thank you for bringing us together this evening to voice our support for the President's vision, for the vision that we share as a caucus in this House, I think it's the empowering vision that enables us to go forward with a Make It in America mantra that enables us to promote the correct policy and the resources associated with that policy to truly make a difference.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, Representative Tonko, I think you were at the President's speech there in your district.

Mr. TONKO. We flew up from Washington on Air Force One and then returned with the President because we had our jobs conference in Maryland.

Mr. GARAMENDI. You and I had this colloquy on the floor where we discussed American manufacturing in making it in America. But I can see you came back charged up from that visit.

Mr. TONKO. We are charged up. We are fired up.

Mr. GARAMENDI. General Electric and the great Erie Canal manufacturing sector is about to rise up, but I am not going to take second fiddle to your place because I represent the great innovation part of California, and we, too, know that we have the potential to really drive the American economy forward, the innovation economy.

One thing you said when you harkened back to the space race and President Kennedy calling upon us to explore the heavens; his next statement, not in the inaugural address but shortly thereafter was, we will put a man on the Moon within a decade. And the Federal Government collected the resources of this Nation and met that challenge, and within a decade, we, Americans, were on the Moon.

The lesson here is the focused attention of America on a goal, and in that case and in this case the investment that America must make to succeed. It was an American investment. A lot of tax dollars went into that.

But not only did we put a man on the Moon, but we created an enormous industry that gives us everything from, I don't know, the ability of this iPhone to work, satellite, all of the great technologies that we have, many of the great technologies we have today on communications and travel and defense came directly from that initial investment that was made by the American people to put a man on the Moon.

And when the President talks about the innovation economy, he is talking about the same kind of let's do it, let's build this thing for the future. And from that leadership, we will find the opportunity to really grow our economy and enter a whole new industry. You talked about the electrical industry that was generated a century ago, and now you talked about the great space industry, and we are going to enter a new industry.

It will be the solar technologies, it will be the wind, the energy technologies, it will be transportation. When one talks about transportation, you have got to figure out some way to get to and out of the cold of the middle America.

Joining us today in the warm 20-degree temperature of Washington, D.C., is Representative Ellison from the upper Midwest, where it is somewhere below zero.

Mr. ELLISON. Somewhere. But you know what, Congressman, although the weather is cold, our spirits are warm. Every time we hear about Making it in America.

This campaign that we are on----

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thought you were going to talk about Green Bay and the Packers and all of that.

Mr. ELLISON. You know what, if the Vikings aren't in it, I don't know.

Mr. GARAMENDI. That's right. You are from Minnesota and the Minnesota Vikings. Okay, we will get past that.

Mr. ELLISON. I think the Vikings for the NFC north, hey, hope springs eternal next year, right? But we are happy to see the Green Bay Packers and the Bears fight it out, definitely. We are known as the black and blue division, and they definitely played hard.

But the truth is we are used to making things in the Midwest, whether you are talking about from Pittsburgh to Detroit, to Cleveland, to Milwaukee, to Minneapolis, we make stuff in the Midwest as you do in the West in California, and as they do in the East in Congressman Tonko's district, Congressman from upstate New York. The fact is that manufacturing and making things is an American value.

But, Congressman, the thing I want to say is that this campaign of Making it in America, before we make anything, we have to believe that we can make things in America again.

We have to believe that we can compete on quality, we can compete on efficiency, and that the goods manufactured by American workers are among the best in this world and can be better. It is a matter of belief, it is a matter of commitment, and it is a matter of vision.

So we set forth a vision, Congressman, and we say that, you know what, in this great Nation we can forge these, we can make this steel, we can build the roads.

We can have a vision that this country can build things that the whole world needs and wants. And if we have that desire, that innate desire at the cellular level, we will begin to see the innovative capacity of this country making the windmills, making the semiconductors, making the cars, making anything and everything. But it's matter of vision, it's a matter of will, it's a matter of commitment. And that vision and will has to be backed up by sound policy, hard work, and the spirit of entrepreneurship. And if these things come together we can certainly do it.

But I believe on this House floor, and in shops across America, unions and in management, people are saying, You know what? We can make stuff in America. America is still the world's leading manufacturer. That's important to bear in mind. We can't forget that we are still the world's leading manufacturer, and we have the highest quality steel, the best technology, the strongest workers.

But you know what, when people want to be penny-wise and pound-foolish, they might want to offshore jobs because they say, well, maybe we can get somebody to do it for less.

But can you get somebody to do it better? And the world wants something that's quality. The world wants something that's made well, that's made right. And that's what Make it in America is all about.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Let me pick up on a couple of those themes before I turn back to Mr. Pallone.

A lot of this has to do with the will, the desire, and the determination to do a task. It also has a lot to do with policy, which you just said, policy. For example, before last year, there was a policy in America that American corporations would get a tax break when they shipped a job offshore. Hello?

Mr. ELLISON. Bad policy.

Mr. GARAMENDI. What did you say, Congressman?

Mr. ELLISON. Bad policy.

Mr. GARAMENDI. American corporations received a tax reduction when they shipped a job offshore. In this House, a bill was introduced. It eliminated that tax deduction, bringing back $12 billion annually to the Treasury, helping the deficit. Our Republican colleagues voted ``no.'' They wanted to continue that tax break. We need to understand that we make decisions here. Policies are important. One example of a policy to use our tax system to help or to hurt American workers, just one. No support from our Republican colleagues to end that tax break. This is about policies that will drive the American economy.

We are going to spend the next 30, 40 minutes here focusing on some of those policies and investment. Mr. Tonko talked about space. That was an investment the American people made, and it paid off big-time, whole new industries, millions of jobs were created.

Mr. Pallone, you come from an area where manufacturing matters, where it's important, where people do make things, also where they have a little bit of fun on the New Jersey beaches, but we'll let that go tonight.

Mr. Pallone.

Mr. PALLONE. I'm glad you talked about my district. I want to talk about my district, and I also want to talk about Mr. Tonko and his district and what the President did last weekend because, as you know, it was a GE plant that he visited in Schenectady. But in addition to that, the president of GE is the guy that President Obama has now tapped to be the head of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. And he wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Post talking about what he wants to do, which I wanted to reference because it harks back.

I wanted to mention my district first and just say briefly that we in my district pride ourselves on being the invention center of the country, or the world, because the heart of my district is Edison, New Jersey, named after Thomas Edison. And Menlo Park where he invented the light bulb and so many other things, is located in Edison. That's why it was named after him after he passed away. And Edison, of course, is the epitome of someone who used invention and research to practically come up with solutions that made a difference for people's lives and created a tremendous amount of jobs.

What the President is saying, let's just talk about the R&D, because I know he's going to talk about that tomorrow. And of course it's going to involve some money that's going to have to be spent by the Federal Government, but it is a wise use of funds. Maybe we're going to have to cut somewhere else in the budget in order to fund things that create jobs; but we are going to, as I said, with a laser beam look at things that create jobs.

Now, let you me just give you an example, big manufacturing, and also I should say big research, in my district is with the pharmaceutical industry. J&J is headquartered in New Brunswick. Johnson & Johnson is in my district. And one of the things that I read about, that I was told about actually, the other day was that the President has decided to create a new R&D function, if you will, within the FDA because he has realized that a lot of the drug companies have lagged a little bit in doing a lot of new innovation to create new drugs because of the recession. They don't have the money, whatever reason.

And so now the Federal Government is going to concentrate on that and do more research themselves, applied research in the Edison-type of applied research arena, to sort of jump-start these drug companies so that they can create and do more research to create more innovative drugs. Now there's a good example. We've always been a leader in the world with drug or pharmaceutical innovation. Now we're starting to lag a little bit. So the government is going to step in and help to give us some money and more resources, if you will, into that R&D function, which will create more jobs and boost up the existing pharmaceutical industry.

The same is true, I understand when he went to GE these are turbines or something that are being used for a project in India. So these are going to be shipped overseas. And my understanding is you talked about 1,200 American manufacturing jobs and more than 400 American engineering jobs just with that GE plant.

I will yield to you, but I want to come back to what the president of GE is saying about this council.

Mr. TONKO. Absolutely. Thank you, Representative Pallone. The importance I think of hosting an event like that which the President joined is that we can showcase that there are great things happening. I for one am not going to submit to this notion that manufacturing is dead in America. I cannot, with a pioneer spirit that I detect all the time, for one, for any moment submit to that logic or that thinking. As the President was hosted by GE, specifically by its CEO, Jeff Immelt, he and so many others believe in the workforce and in the creative genius, leaders, labor leaders like the late Joe Battaglino who was a union voice for GE workers, Helen Corinne in the past, all of whom fought for the dignity of the worker because that worker was providing the intellect to take us to the next plateau.

And so what they talked about here was the fact that not only are American workers producing a high-quality turbine, but were also exporting to places like India.

And as the President said in his speech, we have bought many a Chinese good in this country. It is time for China to buy our products. And I think he is setting a good tone so that there is this fairness that is associated with the trade out there and that we as a Nation not only need to make it in America, but we have to put an emphasis on exporting. And when those emphases are put into play, we will then prosper as a Nation.

You talk about the turbine and the manufacturing going on at GE, but the President was also updated with right next door and the activity right next door which is an advanced battery manufacturing center. And it's not the traditional lithium ion of which many people speak as the cutting-edge battery.

This one that GE is creating can deal with heavy fleets, specifically helping that niche of battery application. It can be used for energy generation. And then perhaps one of its greatest functions, it can be used to store intermittent power. So if we reach to the sun, the soil, and the wind to produce our energy needs, and it has an intermittent nature to it, we then put value added into that supply of energy because of the storage potential of this new battery.

And then they also have, across the street from this plant, GE's global renewable energy center. And what they're doing there is doing this global strategy on renewables. And so the turbine blades that are manufactured there, all of this is that cutting-edge technology that enables us not only to create jobs, made in America, exporting around the world, but also growing our own energy independence and our energy self-sufficiency, which to me is a strategic bit of policy.

So this should not be about Republicans fighting Democrats or Democrats competing with Republicans. This should be America moving forward with a progressive plan, with a laser-sharp focus joined with the message of the President to make certain that we compete not with each other but with other nations. Is it robust? Probably. Is it very hard-fought? Most likely. But we've got to be in it, and we have to have the passionate resolve to make a difference by investing in those key functions like education, higher education, basic research, R&D and modernization of our manufacturing centers.

People will tell me when they hear this manufacturing thing, they said we can't compete. Other nations will do it cheaper. We don't have to do it cheapest. We need to do it smartest--smartest. And when we do it smartest, we win. We sharpen our competitiveness, and we can win on the global scale.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I think Mr. Pallone would like to come back and pick up this investment strategy that you talked about.

Mr. PALLONE. Well, I wanted to just mention briefly, because Mr. Tonko has been talking about GE and the president of GE who is now the head of this new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, I just thought it was interesting. In last Friday's Washington Post, he wrote an opinion piece about how to keep America competitive. The gist of it was not only can we manufacture things here and do things better here, but we have to. In other words, we cannot grow our economy unless we spend a significant amount of resources, primarily in the private sector, but some government as well, in creating and improving the manufacturing sector. It is crucial to the economy. It is not something that we can just ignore.

He talked about, and one of the things I try to do is dispel the idea that we can't manufacture things here or that we can't be competitive because it is almost like a defeatist attitude. As a Member of Congress, you have to dispel this myth that it can't be done.

He says, and I will read his last section: ``It is possible to become a competitive global enterprise and still care about your home. In fact, it is not just possible; it's imperative. There is no easy solution to fix the American economy with persistent and high unemployment, but the pessimism it breeds should not be accepted. We must work together to construct an economy that creates more opportunity.''

That is what I want to stress. It pains me when I come here, and I don't want to be negative, but it pains me when I come here and I see the Republicans talk about repeal health care, repeal Wall Street reform, a budget resolution that has no numbers, get rid of Presidential election public financing, all these things, and it is almost as if they don't believe that we can have a vision for the future and don't want to act on it.

And the beautiful thing about the President in the last few weeks, and from what apparently he is going to say tomorrow in the State of the Union, is that he has a vision of America of opportunity. That is what the president of GE is talking about when he talks about creating opportunity for people. We have to have a vision that says that this is the land of opportunity and that we can be better and we can continue to be the manufacturing leader and the greatest power in the world.

Mr. GARAMENDI. We can do those things, but we have to have wise public policy accompanying the spirit of America. The desire for opportunity and the desire to better ourselves has to be accompanied by wise public policy. For example, right now many of our tax dollars are being used to buy buses and solar and wind turbines that are manufactured overseas. Our tax dollars are going overseas to support the foreign industries. Those tax dollars ought to be brought back home to support American-made equipment, whether it is a bus or a train or a photovoltaic system or the like. That is one of the bills that I have introduced. It is very simple. If it is our tax money, use it to buy American-made equipment. If you want to spend your own money, buy whatever you want to buy, but not our tax money, whether it is solar buses or the like. Just some little policy tweaks that will support the innovation that comes from General Electric or from Joe Schmidt's new photovoltaic system that is invented out in the Silicon Valley.

I notice that our esteemed leader has joined us, Mr. Steny Hoyer, who is now whip of the Democratic caucus.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to call to the attention of my colleagues, as the four of you have done so well tonight and in nights past, we just had a very significant conference on the eastern shore of Maryland. In that conference, we discussed the agenda that we call Make It In America. Make It In America, as I am sure you explained earlier in the evening, I heard much of what you had to say, not all, but Make It In America is about succeeding in America, making it. There are a lot of Americans who are not sure that they, or at least their children, are going to make it.

In addition, Americans overwhelmingly respond, and we hear a lot of talk about listening to the American public, I think that is something we ought to do, but they overwhelmingly respond that their belief is in order for us to continue to be the great economic engine for opportunity in this country, it will be necessary for us to continue to make things in this country. To make it in America, whatever ``it'' is. In addition to that, to grow things in America, as we do so well, and sell them not only domestically but around the world. That's the President's focus on doubling our exports. He knows, as we know, that if we are not making things, the possibility of doubling our exports is zero.

I believe that people around the world respect and want to buy American products. Unfortunately, we are not making as many products as we used to. The President has asked Jeffrey Immelt of GE to head up a task force which looks, in effect, to enhance our ability to make it in

America, to grow jobs in America, to grow good paying jobs with good benefits in America.

The American people understand that if we don't do that, 20 years from now the United States of America will not be, as it is today, the economic engine of the world. It is true our competitor in some sense in China is growing, but they still have a far way to go before they match the United States' ability to produce goods and services.

The founder of Intel, Mr. Grove, has written an article about how we need to make it in America; his point being that we are the center of innovation, inventiveness, and development in the world. But his point is then made that in too many instances we are inventing products, innovating how they can be used, developing them, but then bringing them to scale--that is, manufacturing them for consumption on a broad basis--overseas. His premise is, and I agree with him on this conclusion, that if we continue to do that, that our inventors and innovators will migrate to where the product is being taken to scale or, in other words, manufactured for large-scale consumption.

I am hopeful that Republicans and Democrats can join together in this Make It In America agenda. We passed a number of pieces of legislation in the last Congress that were supported on a bipartisan basis, some of which have already been signed by the President, because on both sides of the aisle there is an understanding and I think a commitment to create an environment in which it is possible to make it in America and profit by doing so.

I think we are all harkened by the fact that Ford has brought plants back from Mexico and China, that Whirlpool has brought plants back, that GE has brought plants back, as well as others, and decided to manufacture things here in America and do so profitably; that they can make a quality product here with skilled labor, well-educated labor that will produce a quality product, higher productivity, and therefore result in profits.

I want to congratulate particularly the gentleman from California, a former State leader in California, still a great leader from California, but he has come to this body just a few years ago to succeed Ellen Tauscher, who became Assistant Secretary of State. He has done an extraordinary job in a very short period of time, and his focus on this Make It In America is unsurpassed, unequaled in this Congress. I want to thank him for his leadership and focus. And I want to thank Mr. Ellison and Mr. Pallone and Mr. Tonko for their focus, because I think we are on the right track on this.

I think our Republican colleagues hopefully will join us as partners not to take partisan credit for this but, that America will be advantaged, America's people will be advantaged. The reduction of our deficit as we grow the economy will be advantaged, and we will see an America that is on the rise in terms of growing our economy, creating jobs, good paying jobs, and opportunities and future for our people.

So I congratulate and thank the gentleman from California, the gentleman from New York, the gentleman from New Jersey, and the gentleman from Minnesota for their leadership and communication to the American people of what this Make It In America agenda is all about.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman from Maryland. You have been a long, long time leader in this House and on the subject of jobs and economic opportunity. I thank you very much for your kind comments.

Mr. GARAMENDI. For me, my work on this actually began in the mid-1980s, in California, where we developed a strategy of how to keep California competitive in this century. Well, this century is now here. We are 10-plus years into this century, and we have a big task.

We said back then in the work that we did that we needed to do six things:

You have to have the best education. That's a public investment that pays off over and over and over again.

Then you have to have the best research and development. That's the innovation economy that our President is talking about. So the research and the innovation go together.

From that, you create the opportunity to make the new things--to manufacture the new electric cars. General Motors was flat on its back, about to disappear, when the Obama administration and Congress stepped forward and brought General Motors back. Now the innovation of an electric car--the Volt--is in place. It's going to happen, and we're going to capture the next round of automobile manufacturing.

Infrastructure is another great and absolutely necessary investment. If you take that infrastructure and if you apply the Make It In America theme--the steel, the trains, the buses, the bridges--American made for America's future, it's possible. You also have to change. You can't do what you did yesterday.

Those are the strategies that pay off.

We need to add to that an energy strategy that frees America from the grips of the petrol dictators.

This is all of our future. This is what we want to do, and this creates the opportunity for Americans, for all Americans, to make it. Making it in America, that's what we all want.

I notice that my colleagues have stood up here.

Mr. Ellison, you were grabbing that microphone with an intensity that requires attention.

Mr. ELLISON. Congressman Garamendi, I don't want to go long because I do want to hear from all of our colleagues, but I just want to mention two quick points. I was inspired by Minority Whip Hoyer as he spoke.

Two points:

One is that manufacturing has historically been the high-wage sector for American workers. The middle class was essentially built because we were making things. The higher wages associated with manufacturing employment have been proven to be much higher than your average service jobs. So manufacturing is definitely in the interest of American working and middle class people, and it is something that I think we should get a lot of support for from around the country.

The other thing is that, in order to really bolster a strong manufacturing sector, we need a strong infrastructure. There are over $1 trillion in infrastructure needs around our country just to keep pace with maintenance. I'm talking about making sure the gusset plates on these bridges are working, that there's not the rust and the crumbling of concrete, and making sure that the bridges and the roads are safe. I'm talking about basic infrastructure.

Now, if we really want to go beyond that by building the transmission lines so that we can move power around and all the new innovative infrastructure--that smart grid--then there is a lot more to do.

The point is that I just want folks to know, before I leave it to our colleagues, that manufacturing is good for the middle class and also the attendant and connected jobs that you need to support manufacturing, like infrastructure development. There are also high-wage jobs that we need to invest in so that we can put America back to work.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, tomorrow night on this floor, the President of the United States will be here for his State of the Union Address. He has already signaled that he is going to talk about the innovation economy--that's education and research. He is going to talk about infrastructure, and he is going to talk about creating jobs--making it in America.

So, as we prepare for that, I noticed our colleague from the great State of Texas has joined us.

Please.

Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I want to thank the gentleman from California very much.

I want to add my words of appreciation for having the opportunity to join you tonight and to join the minority whip, still my majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, who coined the phrase, as we were beginning to speak to the American people, of how important it is for us to go back to our roots.

I am also delighted to be able to be here with the gentleman from Minnesota, the gentleman from New Jersey, and the gentleman from New York.

But I want to spin it in a different way.

I want us to reclaim America's genius. I could go back, of course, to the Model T or maybe even to Thomas Edison, with the light bulb. There is an excitement about being able to build, create, and invent--frankly, when I came to Congress, I wondered why we were not making submarines anymore. As you well know, we had a shipbuilding industry in Virginia and, of course, in Mississippi--because genius also is part of building. You must have the kind of technology, the kind of expertise to make it the best equipment you possibly can have. That's what I sense that we have lost, and there is an excitement when young people can be part of the genius of America.

I come from Houston, Texas. We are one of the new starts in light rail, and we have been trying to get there for about 30 years. We are just about there when we would be on the precipice of funding for light rail. Yet at the same time, as we talk about putting tracks down, there is a technology of the new light rail cars. We need to, in fact, build those cars here in the United States. Many people view Houston as the energy capital of the world. You don't know that we have wind and solar businesses that are headquartered in my congressional district. The point is, of course, that the turbines, unfortunately, are not built here.

My point is, when the President so appropriately makes the point about investing in America and also of building infrastructure, he is speaking the language of capturing the genius of America.

I would just hold this up because I think this is an example of where we are going. We are going onward and upward. The red is the past administration, which is when no jobs were created or maybe a minimum of a million. We can see we have had some hard times. We don't ignore the fact that we have been in a hard, hard recession. But look where we're going. How can we go backwards? How can we not create more jobs?

We in Houston would really like to be part of not sending our tax dollars overseas. We want to be able to build buses, railcars, ferryboats, submarines, and large-sized ships, if you will, because that is capturing the genius of America.

So let me thank the gentleman for yielding. I am hoping the President will indicate to us, Mr. Hoyer and to all who are here on the floor, that he is going to go forward on his investment in infrastructure and in recapturing the genius of America.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much. Indeed, if it's our tax dollars, they ought to be used to buy things that are made in America.

We're going to do a lightning round here. We've got about 6 minutes, and we've got about five of us.

So, Mr. Hoyer, our whip.

Mr. HOYER. I'll try to take a minute.

Let me say what I think is so good about this agenda Make It In America.

It is an agenda that, unlike some, brings us together and doesn't divide us. From left to right--Republican, Democrat--people all over this country understand that, if we are going to be a great country, as we are today, and if we are going to remain so in the future, it will be because we continue to be a manufacturing country, a country that makes it in America.

I have talked to the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, and organized labor. This is an agenda item that will bring labor and management, business and workers together to cooperate so that America will continue, not only to make it in America, but to do so in an expanding way rather than in a shrinking way. We've been doing some growth in the last few months, in the last year, in the last 2 years, in the last 3 years, but not enough. We can do more.

Make It In America is the agenda for the future.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much.

Our colleague from the great State of New York and Schenectady.

Mr. TONKO. I again thank the gentleman from California.

Look, I am ecstatic about the President's choice of Jeff Immelt, the CEO of GE, to be the chair of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. We can probably remove a lot of the struggle that occurs on this House floor by listening to the business minds out there, who will advise us about the strength we can provide to create jobs through invention and innovation.

Here is a voice that's highly respected; he is tremendously strong in his beliefs in American manufacturing again. And so we must let those voices speak and resonate in this discussion, in this dialogue on where we go and how we build our economy.

The President made it very clear: he spent his first couple of years stopping the bleeding of the recession. We were losing 750,000 to 800,000 jobs a month, 8.2 million jobs lost to this economy. Now our assignment is to plan strategically the growth of jobs, what is sustainable.

What is sustainable? Manufacturing, because it incorporates from the trades people over to the Ph.Ds. Everyone has a shot at that economy. It's the muscle we need, it's the American know-how, it's the American intellect. And I thank you again for bringing us together this evening.

Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank the gentleman from New York. Let's hear what New Jersey has to say.

Mr. PALLONE. I'm really excited about the President's speech tomorrow because I know he's going to stress the whole idea of investment and innovation.

He talks about the fact that right now many of the corporations in this country are actually sitting on a lot of profit. I mean, in the last year or so many of them have actually made quite a bit of money, And we want them to reinvest that money in creating private sector jobs here. But one of the points he makes, and I talked a little bit about it tonight, is that the Federal Government has to incentivize all of this. In other words, I used an example with the drug companies that the Federal Government, by doing some research on new drugs, can incentivize the drug companies in my district to do more and create more jobs. But there is also an educational component to it as well. We need to do more in terms of education.

It's no surprise that in the middle of this pharmaceutical industry in my district sits Rutgers University. There is a lot of money through the stimulus act, for example, that went to Rutgers to do R&D that is then taken up by the drug industry. So it's part of a whole package, and I am very excited about it. And I just wanted to thank the gentleman again for all that he has done on this.

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you very much for joining us.

Ms. Jackson Lee, why don't you take 1 minute and I will take 1 minute and we will wrap this thing up.

Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Thank you so very much.

I just thought of something that I did want to add to the discussion. First of all, GE is an inherently American company, so I applaud the selection that allows a creator to move forward to create jobs for all of America. But I want to keep in mind that manufacturing is the employer of all people--women, persons with college educations, those that are in the trades, men, and young people. So families can be hired by manufacturing. And it is particularly important to me that women have the equal opportunity, particularly since we passed the pay equity bill in the last Congress.

But, finally, I also look forward to small and medium minority women-owned businesses partnering with large businesses to create jobs because small businesses and minority-owned businesses can create jobs and are part of the infrastructure of jobs.

So if the President speaks tomorrow, I hope he speaks for all of America, that all will have an opportunity to retrieve the dream by the opportunity to make it in America.

I thank the gentleman for having us this evening.

Mr. GARAMENDI. We have always thought of America as being the land of opportunity; and it has to be the land of opportunity for everyone in this country, wherever they may be, whatever their status may be. And we know that if we are able to rebuild the manufacturing base in America, small companies, large companies, entrepreneurs and inventors will all participate in it.

So the Make it in America effort will be a bipartisan effort. And if we put our minds to it, it will be a successful effort, and America once again will be in the leadership place.

Mr. Speaker, we yield back our time, and we thank you.

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