Jobs For Americans
Floor Speech
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Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you very much, Congressman Garamendi, for your leadership in bringing us together so often. You are absolutely unrelenting, and that's the spirit that is America, so we thank you for your time tonight.
And Congressman Tonko of New York, your steadfast service here in representing a State that has some similar situations to Ohio's in the industrial and agricultural heartland of our country. It's really a special privilege to be here tonight with both of you.
This morning, one of my first visits was with a company in Avon Lake, Ohio, PolyOne. This is a company that makes products in America. Yes, it's a global player, but its innovation center is in Ohio. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs are associated with its plastic products, made both out of traditional petroleum-based inputs as well as the new carbohydrate economy that you can see developing, and it was really quite exciting.
We know that real wealth is created in our country when we make goods in America, when we make it in America. I think the problem over the last several years has been that if you travel to any city in America and you look at the tallest building, what are they? Are they the firms making things or are they merely, as I saw in Michigan recently, a gigantic bank whose headquarters is on Wall Street, a bank that just got bailed out by the American people?
I stopped my car and I looked at that building, and then I looked at the devastation of the communities around that particular part of Michigan, and I thought, what's wrong with this picture? Basically, this institution has sucked up the wealth of neighborhood after neighborhood and left rubble in its way.
They're not being held accountable. Yet I see companies like PolyOne trying to make it in a global economy with a very unfair set of trade practices--closed markets around the world, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft.
I look at what's happening with competitors, with competition to U.S. industry, and you have to say to those patriots who are making goods in America, we stand with you. We should be rewarding those companies. We should be making more goods in our country.
I wanted to just add a word about the automotive industry. There were those in this Chamber that voted against the refinancing of the automotive industry. Without that industry, this country would not have a defense base, and we would not be a great industrial power. And now I see in our region of the country--I was just at Chrysler Fiat. They announced billions of dollars of investment. There's going to be over a thousand more people hired at their main production facility in Toledo, Ohio. Chrysler Jeep makes the Wrangler and the Liberty and likely vehicles that will follow on.
The feeling inside that plant of people who have given their lives to keeping America competitive and to manufacturing a label that is known throughout the world, it was a wonderful day to be there. And I was reminded, and I said very frankly, You know, there were 170 Members of Congress that didn't think you should be here and didn't think that this company should be here. And the company has paid back the loan that was made, and now we're going to have good jobs by making goods in America. So I wanted to share those experiences.
I feel bad that we have a country where certain financial firms that have, totally speculative, have brought us to this point. But I stand with those who have weathered the storm and who are now hiring and trying to move this economy back where we know it can be.
I was very proud to be a Member, as are those who are here with us tonight, to vote for that refinancing of the automotive industry and with its procurement from suppliers--whether it's plastics, whether it's glass, whether it's fibre, whether it's textiles, whatever, that's helping to lift this economy to where last week, on the day after Thanksgiving, retail sales in our country went up about 16.7 percent, I guess. It shows that people have more spending power. That's what we should be doing. We should be using our power here to lift those industries that can really make goods in our country and help recreate a strengthened middle class.
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Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you so much, Congressman Garamendi and Congressman Tonko.
I just wanted to say on Social Security and Medicare, I'm proud to stand with my Democratic colleagues. Social Security is an earned benefit, and it's one that belongs to the American people. We all know its power, not just to allow seniors to live a decent life in their retirement years. But also it's power to lift the economy because seniors spend, mainly on their grandchildren. And they move those dollars into the economy. You watch with that cost-of-living increase, which I'm very happy about, next year, and the fact that the Medicare offset will not be so great that seniors will have extra buying power and they will watch every penny.
I am just so proud to be a part of a tradition of the Democratic Party that has fought for Social Security and has fought for Medicare, not just for the few but for all. And we have made the country a better country as a result.
So I think it's fair to say that, yes, it is true the Republican Party has fought Social Security. Can't they find something else? I don't know what the problem is when the vast majority of the American people, I think like 99.99 percent of the American people, agree with this. I don't know what their problem is. Maybe they're not living in reality most of the time.
I am just very proud to be a part of this tradition along with my colleagues and to say to our senior citizens that next year will be a better year than this year.
My hat's off to Franklin Roosevelt and Frances Perkins and all of the people that fought back in the 1930s to make this program part of the American way of life.
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