Tax Code Should Encourage Businesses to Keep Jobs in U.S., Not Send Them Overseas

Pelosi: Tax Code Should Encourage Businesses to Keep Jobs in U.S., Not Send Them Overseas

Washington, D.C.-House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke this afternoon on the House floor in support of a proposal by Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of New York to change the Republican corporate tax bill in order to encourage companies to keep jobs in the U.S., instead of the Republican plan to provide tax incentives for corporations to outsource jobs overseas. The Republican bill passed by a vote of 251 to 178. Below are Pelosi's remarks:

"My colleagues, today our country is at a crossroads, and this debate on the floor clearly defines the choice that we have to make. Congressman Rangel, at that crossroads, offers us a path to expand opportunity in our country and to grow community.

"Mr. Rangel, as we make this important decision, knows that nothing less is at stake than our technological, industrial and manufacturing base. The path that Mr. Rangel will take us down is one that will stop the hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs to overseas.

"Mr. Rangel will strengthen that base. Because that is the decision we have to make. Are we going to strengthen that base, which is so essential to our national security, so essential to job creation in our country, or are we going to abandon it? Mr. Rangel strengthens it; the Republican proposal abandons it.

"But I have to give Republicans credit, I really have to give them credit, because they are consistent. They are consistently the handmaidens of the special interests, at the expense of the public interest and the public good.

"Every opportunity they get to bring legislation to the floor, we see the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in that regard. And that is most unfortunate, because people across our country are suffering from job loss, from uncertainty in their lives, from their communities dissolving because businesses are leaving, and what that means to America's families and America's communities. That is most unfortunate.

"Mr. Rangel, on the other hand, again, takes us to a place which strengthens community and expands opportunity.

"We have to view what the Republicans are doing within the context of their reckless economic policies. Here they come to the floor, abandoning the American worker at a time when the Republican reckless policies have produced the worst job loss since Herbert Hoover. No President of the United States since Herbert Hoover has lost jobs during his full term in office. But these Republican policies have produced those losses.

"Mr. Rangel's proposal should be viewed in the context of a Democratic proposal to take the initiative on outsourcing, a proposal that says we must have innovation to create the jobs of the future, we must have education to produce the workforce of the future, and we must have job creation, using the tax code, that will reward businesses that stay here, create jobs here, and maintain jobs in the U.S. And that is the distinct difference between what the Republicans are proposing, and what Mr. Rangel is proposing today.

"Unfortunately, because the Republicans are once again afraid of ideas, they would not allow Mr. Rangel's proposal to come to the floor. They would not allow a substitute to be brought to the floor so we could have a fair airing of these different visions of America, because they are two different visions of America.

"Instead, Mr. Rangel is confined to a Motion to Recommit, a parliamentary instrument that gives him only a few minutes to present his case. But his case is a clearly, distinctively different one from the Republicans.' We are talking about two different visions of America.

"Mr. Rangel's proposal is about supporting American values, of expanding opportunity, again through innovation, education, using the tax code for job creation, rewarding those who keep jobs here in the U.S. It recognizes the reality of the global economy, and wants to make U.S. manufacturers the most competitive in the world, with the most productive workers in the world.

"So I thank you, Mr. Rangel, for your sense of responsibility to the American worker, to the American economy, for your sense of responsibility that we all have, to make the future better, and not have an erosion of jobs in our country, but an enhancing of opportunity. And I thank you for what you are doing as far as a sense of community is concerned, because that is a strong American value that is being seriously undermined, by again, the erosion of our manufacturing base, and what that does to communities across the country.

"So I urge my colleagues, as you stand on this crossroads, to choose Mr. Rangel's vision of America. You can do so by supporting his Motion to Recommit; you can do so by rejecting the Republican's ill-conceived legislation, and voting no on final passage

"Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker."