Make It in America

Floor Speech

Madam Speaker, we are going to spend about an hour here talking about something that is of great importance to the American people, to the economy, to the strength of America, and, indeed, the discussion we just heard about national security. It is about how we can build the American economy and build jobs for the working men and women of this country, the great middle class.

There will be much discussion in the days ahead about the Iran nuclear deal. That will be something that is of importance. But today, one question that we ought to ask each other is: If we don't have a deal, then what? The answer to that is: Nothing good.

Let's talk about Make It In America. This is an agenda that the minority whip put together about 4 years ago, and it is about building the American economy, how we can do it. The Make It In America agenda has moved along these last 4 years, almost 5 years now, with numerous pieces of legislation, and we are going to talk about those.

Last week, the minority whip, Mr. Steny Hoyer, put together a hearing on this subject matter, and those Democrats that have introduced legislation over these many years and have reintroduced that legislation testified at the hearing about their pieces of legislation.

The result of that was, wow, what if we did those things? What if we actually passed those pieces of legislation? What if they became law? Well, I tell you what it would mean. What it would mean is an enormous opportunity for this economy to grow and for the great American middle class to enjoy higher wages, more jobs, and more opportunity.

Essentially, the legislation came down in these various ways. We had trade legislation. For example, the big discussion we have had over the last 3 months about trade policy and the Trans-Pacific Partnership is extremely important for American manufacturing. Done properly, it probably would grow American manufacturing. On the other hand, what we have seen in the many years previously is that trade policy can hollow out, destroy American manufacturing. So we talked about trade policy.

One issue of extreme importance to me is the maintenance of the Buy America provisions. This is law that has been in place for more than 50 years, and it essentially says, if you are going to spend American taxpayer money, then spend it on American-made goods and equipment.

Tax policy is extremely important. You can, as present tax policy is set in place, encourage the offshoring of American jobs. American corporations are taking their capital, running off to the lowest wage rate country in the world, planting their capital there, building their manufacturing facilities, and leaving behind the American worker. So there are numerous ideas on tax policy.

Energy policy is another issue. We now know that we have had a very robust, large expansion of American energy production, natural gas and oil, so much so that we are likely to ship off in the days ahead liquefied natural gas. Well, if we do a little bit of that, it is probably okay. If we do too much of that, we raise American prices for energy, and then we are going to see less robust American manufacturing.

On labor policy, it is about how we encourage labor, wage rates, and the reeducation for those men and women that have lost their jobs. Education and research and development are extremely important.

These are the essential elements of the Make It In America policy. We will be talking about all of these today.

As my colleagues come in, I want to welcome them to the floor. I see our colleague from the great Northeast, Ann Kuster, here. If you would like to talk about some of your legislation on Make It In America, we would be delighted to have you join us. I know that you have been working on this a long time in your area, and you have introduced bills in the last Congress and you have new bills in this Congress.

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Ms. Kuster, thank you so very, very much. I think New Hampshire is very fortunate to have your leadership on manufacturing. I think I want to go up there and watch your Manufacturing Week. Now, I am not running for President, so that is not why I would go.

I notice that we have our leader, who has put together this program over the last 5 years. He has geared us up with the hearing last week with all of the members of the Democratic Caucus that have introduced legislation.

Mr. Hoyer, you are our leader. You have made Make It In America an American agenda. Thank you so much for that leadership. Thank you for being here and for last week's conference. We have got more work to do. We need to get all this legislation in place. I know with your leadership we have got a good shot at it.

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Mr. Hoyer, none of this would be happening were it not for your leadership. You brought us together, 34 Members of the Democratic Caucus, each with one or more specific pieces of legislation to move the Make It In America agenda, so that Americans can have those middle class jobs and beyond and above and, in the process, grow the American economy. It is the fair way to do it. It is the right way to do it; grow the American economy in a fair way so that those middle class jobs are there.

It is the future; it has been the past; it can be the future with the legislation, and each one of these ideas--trade, taxes, energy, labor, education, research and infrastructure--the 34 Members of your caucus brought forth legislation in each and every one of those areas.

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