Job Creation and the American Dream

Floor Speech

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Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you very much, Representative SUTTON and Mr. Tonko.

It's good to be back on the floor and to talk to you and to be talking about basic fairness, about the basic fairness of: How is America going to get back on track? How are we going to create the jobs?

I did a town hall in my district on Wednesday this last week, and the subject matter on everybody's mind was the jobs: How are we going to get a job? How am I going to stay in my home?

There is a way to do it. The American Jobs Act that the President has proposed--I suppose had that actually been proposed by anybody else it may very well have passed the Senate. But the American Jobs Act actually has the ingredients to get Americans back to work.

Just this week, I guess it was actually last week now, the Senate took up a couple of pieces of the American Jobs Act, a bill that would put 200,000, almost 300,000 teachers back in the classroom and about 100,000

police and firemen back on the streets to protect us with a one-half of one--one-half a percent increase in taxes on those who have an adjusted gross income over $1 million. And the Senate Republicans killed the bill with the filibuster, didn't even allow it to come to a vote. So with the filibuster, they were able to kill a bill that would have put 400,000 Americans back to work in the classroom, on the streets for policing, and protecting us with firemen. I wonder what they are thinking.

There's a basic gross unfairness in that, that middle class teachers lost their jobs because of the recession; lack of tax revenue at the county or State level, they've lost their job, and because the Republicans in the Senate and in this House refused to put a little teeny, tiny tax on millionaires' income, those people can't go to work. Where do you stand in fairness?

And this Wall Street business. OMG--text this, folks. The Wall Street bonuses--you have 2009 on your chart there, Ms. Sutton, but the Wall Street bonuses in 2010 and 2011 are even bigger. Extraordinary income for Wall Street while teachers cannot get a job, while police and firemen are out of work, where protection in our community is not available. And the Wall Street barons are continuing to make money, and they're not making loans. They're doing this by simply gambling in computerized trading. And it's got to stop. This basic unfairness has got to stop.

Thank you so very much for bringing this to our attention. And you wonder what this Occupy Wall Street, occupy cities across the Nation, that's what it's about. People in their gut know something is wrong and it's just not right.

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Mr. GARAMENDI. What we have is the Republican agenda. The Republicans have now been in control of the House of Representatives since January--over 10 months now--and they have not produced one jobs bill.

You were talking about the issue of shipping jobs overseas, and it is true. The American tax system, prior to December of last year, gave a tax break of some $15 billion a year to American corporations for every job they shipped overseas. The Democrats, by a democratic vote, passed a law that eliminated that tax break. Not one Republican voted to eliminate the tax break that American corporations had when they shipped jobs offshore. Just so you know where people are in this House, the Republicans refuse to end the tax break that American corporations had when they offshored jobs.

The Republican agenda: no jobs. That's their agenda. They talk about cuts. Every time there has been a cut--and there's been numerous cuts. We've been through this for the last 10 months. Everybody's cut is somebody's job. They've lost that job.

What we need is a different agenda. What we need is a Democratic agenda. What we need is a better deal for America.

And it's this: We'll Make It in America. We will build, we will rebuild those parts of the American economy that create jobs, solid jobs.

You mentioned the China currency bill. Yes, it is true, and they say American businesses can't compete. That was directly from our Republican colleagues. That's not true. Economists say over and over again the American industries can compete on a fair level playing field.

But when China has its currency 25 to 30 percent cheaper, there's no way we can compete. It is unfair; it's unrealistic. It has got to end. The Senate passed that bill. The Speaker of this House has refused to allow the Chinese currency bill to come to the floor for a vote.

We passed it last year when the Democrats ran the House. This year, with the Republicans, apparently they want to make sure China succeeds and America fails.

Bring the bill to the floor, Mr. Speaker. Bring the bill to the floor so that we can vote here in this House on the Chinese currency bill and end the unfairness. And if they want to continue, China wants to continue to undervalue its currency, then we'll put a tariff on their goods coming in here, and we will have a level playing field.

We need a better deal for America. Here's the Republican deal: no jobs, no jobs. That's what they are about.

We are about building jobs in America. We're about Make It in America once again, helping our manufacturing sector, creating those middle class jobs; and we can do it with fair tax policy, as Mr. Tonko has so eloquently explained, and for the manufacturing policies that you have, Ms. Sutton.

Thank you so very much for the opportunity to be on the floor with you and to talk about making it in America, rebuilding the American middle class. We can do it. This is a great country.

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