Jobs

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Everybody has the same issues: the underground systems, the water systems, the overhead systems, the bridges. I wonder sometimes about those who don't support the American Jobs Act. Don't they drive over bridges? Don't their families drive over bridges?

We have 400 unsafe, structurally unsafe bridges in the State of Illinois, and so aside from the jobs that it would create, the safety issues that would be addressed.

I wanted to just debunk a myth that is so persistent and that some of our colleagues on the Republican side want to repeat over and over again, and that is that the stimulus bill did nothing, created no jobs. And of course that's just not true. No matter how many times they say it, it is not true. Between 1.9 million and 3 million jobs were created or saved.

But I also know it's not true because many of those same people, when the ribbons get cut on those projects, actually appear at the ribbon cuttings. As we speak right now, there are people who are collecting those photos and videos and news accounts of those people who say the stimulus program created no jobs so that we can compile those kind of things and show the hypocrisy that you have when the project opens, there they are, smiling and cutting the ribbon, because it's not true. It did create jobs.

I wanted to point out that at the very beginning of our country, George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton to come up with a manufacturing strategy. Hamilton was the Secretary of the Treasury, and he came up with an 11-point manufacturing strategy because, at that point, almost everything had to be imported mainly from England, from whom our colonies had just broken and now our new country was trying to create its independence.

Really what Alexander Hamilton did was kick off the American industrial revolution, and there are a number of principles which I think are very applicable today. They call stimulus--he doesn't use that word, but he talks about pecuniary bounties, which essentially is to support industries, to give money to create jobs. This has been found to be one of the most efficacious means of encouraging manufacturers; and it is, in some views, the best, though it hasn't been the practice, he says, of the United States, and that we should do that.

He also says, the encouragement of new inventions and discoveries at home, and the introduction into the United States such as may have been made in other countries, particularly those which relate to machinery.

So we had a comprehensive industrial manufacturing policy which involved the public sector making contributions, investing and making sure that not only did we have a vibrant industrial economy, but we had people that would work in those things.

By the way, when George Washington found out that he had been elected President, he looked for an American-made suit and finally found someone in Connecticut that was actually making those, the fabric; because, while we had the raw materials, they were made into clothing mostly in England, and he was darned if he was going to be wearing an imported-from-England suit to the inauguration as President.

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That's exactly right.

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. These are called public works projects for a reason. They're done by the public sector. They are good for our country. They are good for our economy. They put people to work. And that's exactly what we ought to be doing, and that's what the American Jobs Act is for.

Let me just emphasize one other piece of it, and that is the piece of fixing our schools. Again, not only does this create jobs and not only does this do it summer, winter, spring, and fall because you don't have to wait for construction season, but it's also good for our children who are sitting in schoolrooms around the country that are really toxic, where there's asbestos contamination and that are dangerous or inadequate in the sense of being unwired for the kinds of technologies that we need for the future in order for them to be able to get good jobs, not only now but when they become adults and go into the workforce.

This is such a no-brainer to me. If we are serious about wanting to educate or children as well as put people to work, as well as create a healthy environment for them, this is such a sensible proposal, a part of the American Jobs Act.

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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And electrical connections for the Internet.

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