Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. BENNET. Mr. President, I am here on the floor today to talk a little bit about our economy and something that I think is very important that has been left unaddressed in this payroll tax compromise that I think is a real tragedy for our country and for my State, the State of Colorado, and, most importantly, for people who are suffering through this incredibly difficult economy.
It is not well understood by people--I think maybe even in this Chamber--that our country's gross domestic product--the economic output of our country--is actually higher today than it was before we went into this recession. We saw it rising all the way in the 1990s and 2000s, and then we had the worst recession since the Great Depression. Now we are seeing economic output that is actually at a level that is higher than it was before we went into the recession.
Our productivity is higher today than it has been at any time in the history of the United States of America. It has become fashionable to talk about what has happened or not happened since the founding of our country. Since the founding of our country, our economy has never been more productive than it is today, and there are several reasons for that. Competition from abroad that has become a daily occurrence--something we have to fight hard every day to stay ahead of--has driven productivity. That is a good result. Technology has driven productivity. That is a good result. And the recession itself drove productivity straight up. As our business men and women of this country did what they had to do to get through this incredibly tough economic time to keep their businesses alive, to keep their doors open, to keep a promise to the next generation of Americans, productivity went ever skyward. That is a good result. That is progress. And we are only going to become more productive over time as we face competitive threats from around the world.
But we can see what else has happened over this period of time. Median family income has fallen over the last decade for the first time in our country's history. The middle class is earning less today in real dollars than in the early 1990s. And, as the President knows, we are producing this economic output with 23 or 24 million people who today are unemployed or underemployed in this economy. There are no jobs for these Americans in this economy even though our output is as high as it was before we went into this recession.
There are a lot of people smarter than I am who could figure out the answers to this, but there are at least two big ones we have to keep in mind. The first one is education because the worst the unemployment rate ever got for people with a college degree during this recession was 4.5 percent. That is the worst it got for people who had a college degree, who could compete in the 21st century, even in the worst recession since the Great Depression.
As I have said on the floor of this Chamber that has 100 seats, 100 desks, if we were poor children living in the United States of America today, only 9 of these 100 seats would represent college graduates because 91 of 100 poor children in the United States in the 21st century cannot get access to a college degree. So that is job No. 1, to keep a promise to the next generation of Americans.
I think job No. 2 needs to be driving innovation and job growth in this economy, which is what has brought me to the floor today because we are failing in this package, among other things, to extend the wind production tax credit which cuts right to the core of whether and how we want to compete in the 21st century in this global economy.
For people here or elsewhere who think these jobs aren't real in the wind industry, I brought some pictures. I brought some pictures of a manufacturing plant made in America--made in America--in this case, in Brighton, CO--a manufacturing plant, the towers from which wind turbines are going to be hung, driving electricity and jobs in the United States. So we are not talking about some fly-by-night, experimental industry. This credit has triggered enormous economic growth in Colorado and across the country.
Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Iowa, wrote today in an op-ed that he published that ``the production tax credit has driven as much as $20 billion in private investing.'' This isn't some Bolshevik trick, some Socialist trick; it is $20 billion in private investment in real American manufacturing jobs.
Wind power accounts for more than one-third of all new U.S. electric generation in recent years. In Colorado alone, I can tell you it has created 6,000 jobs in my State. It has moved our State toward a more diversified and cleaner energy portfolio, so that Colorado today is a leader among the 50 States in diversifying our portfolio.
Let's be clear. We have oil and we have coal and we have natural gas. We have abundant wind and abundant sun and entrepreneurial horsepower all across the Front Range. What we don't have is Washington's cooperation. What we don't have is the decency of people coming together and doing better than just keeping the flickering lights on in this place.
It is because they can't get any certainty out of Washington that developers and manufacturers are starting layoffs already in anticipation of the credit expiring at the end of this year. This is the result of nothing other than our political dysfunction in Washington.
Vestas, which has a huge manufacturing footprint in Colorado--from Windsor all the way south to Pueblo--is poised to lay off 1,600 workers if we fail to act. Iberdrola Renewables, also doing business in Colorado, has already laid off 50 employees for no reason other than our inability to get our work done. Nationally, 37,000 jobs are at risk, not to mention the ones we could have created after 2012 but won't if we let this credit expire.
I brought a couple of other pictures just to make sure people know this is distributed all over the United States.
This is Pennsylvania and Texas.
I know I sound like a broken record when I say this because I have said it over and over on this floor, but we should not be confused that the rest of the world is somehow waiting for us to get our act together, that they are somehow waiting for us to cure our politics and do something that will actually solve those curves that I mentioned earlier and put Americans back to work manufacturing in jobs that are actually driving middle-class family income up, rather than down, which is what we are doing today.
Our largest single export from the United States of America is aircraft. We export $30 billion a year. China's export of solar panels last year was $15 billion--half our largest single export. They didn't export one solar panel 10 years ago, and we invented the technology here in the United States. In fact, some of us believe we invented that technology in the State of Colorado. I am sure the Chinese would love to have this business as well. And my concern is not that this is a temporary interruption in our wind industry but that this will become a permanent shutdown of our ability to drive economic growth across the United States. This is a perfect example of an industry that can move this employment level back up, an industry that we don't have today, one that is in its infancy but 50 years from now or 20 years from now may be driving significant employment growth across the United States of America.
This is an industry that, by the way, would drive this curve up as well.
I met a young man in Logan County not long ago. He was working--he was giving me a tour on the top of a wind turbine. I was standing on the very top of the box. It was about 10,000 feet in the air--or it felt that way to me. I was wearing the shoes I am wearing right now on the floor of the Senate, which is not what you should wear when you are on the top of a wind turbine, swaying in the wind. He told me he would be unable to live in his home community and raise his family in his home community if it had not been for that job, a job he could not even have imagined there being 5 years ago. And there it is today.
These are high-quality, high-paying jobs in the United States of America. It would seem to me the Congress ought to figure out a way to support these industries. I actually do not believe any of these kinds of credits should be permanent. I want to be clear about that. I think we would be doing ourselves and the country a service if we designed them in a way that phased them out over time, because at a certain point every business has to sink or swim based on its merits. We are ``this close'' to being there with wind production and we are ``this close'' to turning it over to the rest of the world.
This is not a partisan issue. This is not a partisan issue. Last week Republicans and Democrats from the Colorado delegation came together in the House and the Senate to urge a quick extension as part of the payroll deal. I know my colleagues Senators Harkin and Grassley did the same with the delegation from Iowa.
I ask unanimous consent to have those letters printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
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Mr. BENNET. As I recall, Senator Grassley actually was the one who wrote this to begin with. We have also recently filed an amendment, a bipartisan, fully paid for, 1-year extension of the credit to the surface transportation bill. I thank Senator Moran, a Republican from Kansas, for joining me to lead on that amendment.
There is plenty of support out there for us to get this done. More important than that, if we do not act, there are thousands of people who are going to have to go home to their families and say they were laid off from their job for no reason other than the political dysfunction here in Washington, DC.
I think enough is enough. I cannot tell you how much I look forward to a time when we have a thoughtful, bipartisan, fact-based tax reform in this country; when we are thinking about our Tax Code and our regulatory code and asking ourselves: Are we driving job growth here in the United States with these policies? Are we driving up middle-class family income with these policies? Are we addressing the income inequality gap by having an economy that truly does lift all ships and, as the President would make the point, are we dealing with the fiscal challenges this country faces so we do not strap our kids with this mountain of debt?
I know there are people on both sides of the aisle who are anxious to work on this, but we have failed that test in this compromise measure. It is my hope that at some point in the near future we can get a vote on this amendment, Senator Moran's amendment, and we can put Americans back to work in these industries before we lose them forever.
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