Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. President.

I first want to thank my friend from Illinois for his usual eloquence, and our leader and others who have spoken about what has been happening under an administration that chooses to fight those who state their opinions, face the facts, and give us information rather than working with us to make sure we have the best information; working with us to make sure the decisions we make are the right ones.

Mr. President, I want to speak about Medicare today, and the fact that one of those who stood up and was prepared to give us information is the Medicare actuary Richard Foster.

We now know he was told if he gave up information about the cost of the Medicare bill that passed last year before we voted on it, he would face being fired. We have heard this repeated over and over in different ways about people who had the courage to stand up and disagree--or in this case a career public servant who was trying to do his job.

We find now on this Medicare bill that as we look more closely, over and over we are deeply disturbed by what has unfolded relating to the Medicare bill.

As I indicated over and over on the floor before we passed the final version, this is clearly about what is in the interest of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance industry in this country--not in the best interests of seniors, not in the best interests of consumers or taxpayers. Piece by piece, we are seeing major flaws in this law; in fact, so much so that we are seeing comments from colleagues. Our colleague from Mississippi, Senator Lott, has indicated now if it were to be done over he would in fact change his vote. I wonder how many others would be doing the same thing given what we have found.

This law does nothing to lower prices for Medicare recipients and families, which should be one of the primary goals. That should have been at the top of the list for us to do. Despite the passage, in fact, of something that would lower prices--what we call the reimportation of prescription drugs or the ability to allow the local pharmacist, say, in Michigan or across the country to do business with pharmacists in other countries such as Canada to bring back prescription drugs at half the price; most of them are made in the United States, and American taxpayers helped subsidize the research to make them. But instead of allowing that to happen--to lower prices, in fact, up to 70 percent in some cases--we saw nothing in the final bill.

The law prohibits the Medicare program from using its purchasing power to lower prices, which is stunning. What organization doesn't want to purchase in bulk in order to lower prices? Yet the Medicare legislation that passed specifically prohibits that from happening. There is only one group that benefits from that.

The law, as we know, would also lead to about one in four retirees losing their private coverage, if they have retiree coverage, given the way it is designed. My latest concern relates to what is happening with the discount cards in the legislation.

One thing we thought at least would be helpful--not as much as allowing us to bring back lower cost prescription drugs from Canada and from other countries, but something we had hoped would help a little bit--would be the discount card that was put in place which was supposed to provide from a 10 percent up to a 25-percent discount on prescription drugs.

But just as Health and Human Services announced which companies would be providing the discount cards, we also learned the meager savings these cards might offer is being eaten up by the continued explosion in prescription price increases.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the prescription drug provision for our seniors and the disabled increased nearly 3\1/2\ times faster than the overall inflation rate in 2002. Because there are no checks or controls or accountability on these prices, the discount cards are very vulnerable to gaming by the pharmaceutical industry.

What do I mean by that? For example, the wholesale price for Lipitor or Zoloft went up 19 percent in the last 2 years. The pain reliever Celebrex went up 23 percent. Their producer has said these increases are among the most moderate pricing in the industry.

We are seeing great increases so that any kind of a discount now will be based on an inflated price, not providing relief for seniors.

I am very concerned. We are hearing from Families USA, which we know is a consumer health care advocacy group. They have now laid out four concerns they have which I will share regarding discount cards.

Their first concern is they say neither the new law nor the legislation specifies the base price on which the discounts will apply. Gains in the base price are going up dramatically, and we are going to give a 10 or 15-percent discount, or even a 30-percent discount. But the price has gone up 40 percent. You are not getting much of a deal.

Second, under the Discount Card Program, sponsors are required to pass on to cardholders only an undefined share of the rebates they get from drug manufacturers, and they can keep the remaining savings as profits. They are not required to pass on the entire amount of savings from the manufacturers to our seniors.

I know our leader Senator Daschle has a bill that would correct that, of which I am cosponsor, and I hope very strongly we will be able to pass it.

The regulations foster, in fact, also what is called bait-and-switch schemes so that people go into a particular card, and then things are switched. What is amazing is while the senior is locked into a specific card for 7 days, the size of a discount can change. Seniors are locked in but the provider is not.

Finally, there is a $600 credit, which is positive for low-income seniors, that is applied to these cards. However, with the low-income asset tax and new, very cumbersome paperwork involved, we are not sure how many low-income seniors will actually receive the discount.

We can do better than that. If we were simply to do what the House of Representatives did in a strong bipartisan vote a number of months ago, we would be able to immediately drop prices at least in half with reimportation.

I urge my colleagues to get serious and pass that bill.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I rise today to express tremendous concern about the latest news regarding the Medicare trust fund and the solvency of the trust fund. We are now hearing that Medicare, in fact, will become insolvent 7 years sooner than we had been told last year.

During the time between last year and this year, there has been a Medicare bill passed by the Senate. I believe there is a direct correlation between what was passed, which I have deep concerns about, and the new number we are hearing about Medicare being jeopardized and becoming insolvent 7 years sooner.

We know that in the bill that was passed last year, there were payments for the first time to private plans so they could compete with traditional Medicare. We know that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, it in fact has cost 13.2 percent more for the private sector through Medicare+Choice to provide the very same services as traditional Medicare. Rather than saying we should go, then, with the most cost-effective way to provide health care services for seniors and use traditional Medicare, the response, unfortunately, from the Congress and the President was to subsidize private insurance companies and HMOs so they could compete more favorably.

Originally, it was $14 billion taken away from providing prescription drug coverage for seniors, helping to pay for their medicine, taking those dollars away from other preventive services that could be paid for, other direct services that could be given to our seniors, and it was put into providing subsidies for the private sector.

Now we see in the new numbers how all of this has changed with the revelation of the tremendous increase in the cost of the Medicare bill which we were told after it passed. We are now told the first estimate of $14 billion being diverted is now really $46 billion being diverted--$46 billion not going to pay for our seniors receiving help with their medicine, to afford their medicine through Medicare, but being diverted to essentially privatize or help private plans be able to compete because it costs more to provide Medicare coverage and prescription drug coverage under private plans. We see greater costs there.

Then right at the time we need to be doing everything possible to leverage and lower our costs, we know this Medicare prescription drug bill actually says in the middle of the bill that Medicare is not allowed to group purchase, to get bulk discounts, which is astounding. Every time I say that to a group of people at home in Michigan, they look at me in bewilderment: What in the world were you thinking that you would not try to get the best possible price through a bulk discount? Yet we know that one of the reasons there is increased costs in this bill is because they are not doing bulk purchasing.

Why are they not doing bulk purchasing? Because the pharmaceutical industry does not want that to be done. They do not want us to get lower prices. They want us to pay the highest possible prices. So, unfortunately, this bill says that, which is another reason why I opposed the passage of the Medicare bill.

Over and over we are seeing situations unravel that cause me great concern, not only about the new dollar amount, the new substance in this bill, but also about the process that brought us to the passage of the Medicare bill. I will speak now to some of what we have been hearing and reading in recent days and weeks.

The Government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription drug plan. This was written on March 12 of this year, just last week, in the Miami Herald. We know there were new estimates, new actual costs that were identified, and we were not told about them before the passage of this bill.

We know that between November 20 and 24 of last year, administration officials repeatedly stated without qualification that the prescription drug bill ``will not cost more than $400 billion over 10 years.'' In making these representations, administration officials relied on CBO estimates without citing the conflicting estimates from their own analysts. This comes from a special report Health and Human Services

Secretary Tommy Thompson gave at the time, as well as other news reports.

We then found out after the new year on January 29--not November, now we move up to January 29--the administration announced the Medicare drug bill would cost at least $534 billion over 10 years--$139 billion more, just as we find the new subsidies for private plans, insurance companies, and HMOs have gone up, and certainly there is no cost containment in this bill.

On January 30, the President indicated he learned of the new estimates only 2 weeks earlier, but yet we find on February 12 Secretary Thompson testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that they were given the final higher drug cost on Christmas Eve of 2003, which contradicts the President's earlier statements.

Then on top of having conflicting information about the cost and when the administration knew about the cost, we also hear from a colleague of mine in Michigan, Representative Nick Smith, who said last fall unknown GOP colleagues had tried to bribe him into voting for the contentious prescription drug bill on November 22 by promising campaign help to his son who is running to replace his retiring father. This was reported in the Washington Post on March 15 of this year.

We now know there is an ethics investigation going on in the House of Representatives regarding this process. We know when this bill first came up in the House, they did not have the votes for it and kept the board open an unprecedented 3 hours plus to change votes, to get the votes for this Medicare bill.

Republican colleagues have said that if they had known the true cost at that time, they would not have voted for it. The cost was hidden. We did not find out what the true costs are, and then we see tremendous pressure on colleagues to vote for this bill, and now the Ethics Committee is looking into what happened in at least one circumstance.

Then we move to another area of great concern to me, and that is the advertising of this particular legislation, this new Medicare bill. According to the New York Times on March 16:

The administration then attempted to rally support and take

political credit for the prescription drug plan with

Government-produced TV ads masquerading as news reports.

Actors were hired by the Department of Health and Human

Services to pose as television journalists purveying facts,

upbeat ``news'' segments about the expanded Medicare

coverage.

I also have concerns because in that particular taxpayer-funded advertising, we have found, as a result of a GAO report and a request for investigation that we asked to have done on March 10, the GAO concluded that the Bush administration's Medicare advertisements contain notable omissions and other weaknesses. While they indicate they are not unlawful, they have notable omissions and other weaknesses.

One of my concerns about all of this is that we are seeing a lack of truthfulness regarding the cost of this bill. Many of us had great concerns about this bill in the beginning. We had colleagues being told one thing and then finding out another, saying if they had known, they would not have supported the bill; high pressure tactics going on and an ethics investigation now related to what was done in the House; and then we see taxpayers' dollars being used to put forward less than accurate information.

I ask for an additional 1 minute.

Without objection, I ask for an additional 1 minute.

I will simply indicate then I have deep concerns about this whole process, and now we find it affects the bottom line.

I urge colleagues to relook at this Medicare bill and what is in the best interest of seniors.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Madam President, today I have lost a very dear friend, as have the people of Michigan and hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Millie Jeffery is an icon in the State of Michigan and in our country for civil rights, women's rights, and workers' rights. Her life has epitomized the principles by which we all strive to live our lives--justice, equality, and compassion.

Although small in stature, Millie has been a giant among all of us who have known her. Words cannot express the depth of affection and respect in which Millie is held, nor can words quantify the lives that she has touched.

Mildred McWilliams Jeffrey, social justice activist, retired UAW Director of the Consumer Affairs Department and a Governor Emerita of Wayne State University, died peacefully surrounded by her family early this morning in the Metro Detroit area. She was 93. In 2000, President William Clinton awarded her the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award bestowed by the United States Government.

In seeking world peace by ensuring equality for all, Millie spent a lifetime working on labor, civil rights, education, health care, youth employment, and recreation issues. She

brought inspiration and humor to the many people she touched--and did so with optimism and undaunted spirit.

Millie's list of accomplishments and awards is long but what she is most remembered for is her zest for organizing. She mentored legions of women and men in the labor, civil rights, women's rights, and peace movements. As President Clinton noted: ``Her impact will be felt for generations, and her example never forgotten.''

Millie was one of the most important mentors in my life and I will always be very, very grateful to her.

Born in Alton, IA, on December 29, 1910, Millie was the oldest of seven children. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1932 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and received a master's degree in social economy and social research in 1934 from Bryn Mawr College. In graduate school, she realized that to improve the lives of working women and men she would have to change the system. In the 1930s, that meant joining the labor movement.

Millie became an organizer for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in Philadelphia and then Educational Director of the Pennsylvania Joint Board of Shirt Workers. In 1936, she married fellow Amalgamated organizer Homer Newman Jeffrey, and they traveled throughout the South and East organizing textile workers. During World War II, the Jeffreys worked in Washington, DC, as consultants to the War Labor Board, where they became close friends with Walter, Victor, and Roy Reuther.

Mildred and Newman Jeffrey moved to Detroit in 1944 when Victor Reuther offered Millie a job as director of the newly formed UAW Women's Bureau. Millie's commitment to equal rights fueled her career at the UAW. She organized the first UAW women's conference in response to the massive postwar layoffs of women production workers replaced by returning veterans. From 1949 until 1954, Millie ran the union's radio station. She moved on to direct the Community Relations Department. She was director of the Consumer Affairs Department from 1968 until her retirement in 1976.

Millie joined the NAACP in the 1940s and marched in the south with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. Former executive secretary of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP, Arthur Johnson, said that ``in the civil rights movement, she knew how to fight without being disagreeable.''

Mildred Jeffrey also was very active in the Democratic Party, preferring to work behind the scenes organizing, canvassing, consulting, and fundraising. She was the consummate strategist. Millie provided savvy advice to Democratic officeholders and presidents from JFK to Bill Clinton. Senator Edward Kennedy--D-MA--observed ``whether it was a worker in a plant or whether it was a Congressman or Senator or President, Millie inspired people.''

As a founding member and chair of the National Women's Political Caucus, Millie supported female candidates for public office. Twenty years ago she led the effort to nominate Geraldine Ferraro as Walter Mondale's running mate. Most recently Millie delighted in being represented by Michigan women she supported, Governor Jennifer Granholm, and myself. Millie is the ``political godmother'' for many of us, and we are extremely grateful for her love and support.

Millie ran for public office in 1974 and was elected by the people of the State of Michigan to the Wayne State University Board of Governors, an office she held for 16 years--1974-1990. She was so proud of her role in supporting this wonderful university. She served three terms as board chair. Millie loved Wayne State University and was a long-time resident on campus. She never tired of showing visitors around her ``neighborhood''--the Adamany Undergraduate Library, the Hilberry Theatre, and the Walter P. Reuther Library. Millie thrived in the academic environment enriched by Wayne State University students.

Her friendships extended worldwide across all ages and nationalities. Whether discussing math with teenagers in Wayne State's Math Corps or strategizing at the UN Conference on Women about the plight of sweatshop workers, Millie's capacity for connecting with people was unmatched.

Millie's capacity for connecting with people was unmatched. As one who traveled with her to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, it was amazing to see people from all over the world, hearing we were from Michigan, asking if we knew Millie Jeffrey and if we could tell them where she was; or that their grandmother, their aunt, suggested they meet Millie Jeffrey.

I often said the way to world peace was to let Millie loose; sooner or later we would all know Millie Jeffrey and come to understand each other.

Millie was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame and was an original board member of the Michigan Women's Foundation. She served in various leadership roles in a wide variety of national and State organizations such as the Michigan Women's Political Caucus, the Coalition for Labor Union Women, Americans for Democratic Action, National Abortion Rights Action League, Voters for Choice, EMILY's List, and the American Civil Liberties Union. She served on the peer review board of Blue Cross and was an active member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Detroit.

She was also an adoring mother of a son and a daughter and adoring grandmother who developed and nourished creativity and curiosity in her two grandchildren who she loved dearly, Erica Jeffrey and Thomas Jeffrey. She encouraged Erica's love of ballet. She urged Thomas to travel to learn about the world and was so proud of his AmeriCorps Service.

All of these lists of awards, duties, responsibilities, and committees do not say what Millie is all about: Millie Jeffrey was a one-of-a-kind woman of great passion, of great commitment, of great interest in knowing about each one of us and what we were doing and what we cared about and how she could help. Millie is no longer with us, but she will be with us forever because her spirit will continue in all of us.

Madam President, I rise to speak in strong support of this amendment. I am pleased to be a cosponsor. I, first, thank my friend from California for her ongoing leadership, her eloquence, her understanding of these issues, and also my friend from New Jersey, who speaks with such common sense about what this is all about.

There are several pieces to this amendment that are critical for my State. Frankly, there is nothing more important right now in Michigan than creating a level playing field for our businesses and our workers, helping them to lower the cost of their health care, helping and supporting those efforts to invest in innovation and education, and the ability to move forward with increased skills and productivity and compete in the world economy.

I am very pleased that in this amendment is the type of manufacturing tax credit I first introduced last fall and have been working with the Finance Committee on to make sure we are rewarding those who are creating manufacturing jobs in the United States of America. We need to make sure they have a lower tax rate, and we need to make sure our tax system does not encourage those who wish to take our jobs and export them. We want to export products, not our jobs. That is what this amendment does. It allows us to focus on those things that create jobs in America, good-paying jobs, that focus on work, not wealth, in our country.

It is very common sense to say, rather than another tax cut for the privileged few, we want to invest in jobs and strong businesses in America for everyone. That is what this amendment is all about.

In speaking about this, I want to, once again, raise concern that after 6 months of the President talking about putting someone in the Department of Commerce to focus specifically on manufacturing, we have yet to see that person appointed.

My deep concern is that I read in the paper today the person now being considered, after we have been encouraging this month after month, is someone who actually has--I don't know this gentleman and this is certainly not a personal attack. I certainly don't know him, but I do know of my concern that his company, Behlen Manufacturing, of Columbus, NE, laid off 75 workers in 2002, 4 months after announcing plans for a $3 million factory in northwest Beijing. As Yogi Berra said: It's deja vu all over again.

This is the kind of headline we get every day now in my State. I don't want somebody heading up the manufacturing effort who is doing that. I want to see someone who has made a commitment to America and American jobs and to help American businesses stay here and be productive. That means fighting for a level playing field on trade policy, currency manipulation, and tackling health care issues. It also means focusing on those issues that help our companies be more competitive, more efficient.

Two of those programs, which I have been deeply involved in now for over 7 years, in the House and now in the Senate, are the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Advanced Technology Program.

Yes.

Absolutely. This is an issue we have to address. We have to make sure our tax policy rewards those who create jobs here.

As the Senator from California was speaking about individuals, I would like to share for the record two of literally hundreds of letters I have received from people in Michigan speaking about their personal situation. This is not economic theory. These are real-life experiences of businesses and individuals in Michigan who are desperately impacted right now by our unwillingness to have policies that are good for American businesses and jobs at home.

One example: A Michigan resident from Union City, MI, writes:

My wife and I own a small machine shop in Union City, MI.

At one time, we had seven employees. Now my wife, my son, and

myself are all that's left. Most of the time we don't even

have enough work for ourselves. I watched as many of my

friends and competitors have gone out of business and just

closed their doors or filed for bankruptcy. While we fight

the war on terrorism, if we are not careful, we will lose a

much bigger war to the rest of the world without firing a

shot.

This economic war, this need to fight for a level playing field for our businesses and workers, is every bit as serious to our quality of life as what is happening abroad.

One other part of a letter I will share, and this is from a resident in Clyde, MI:

My husband, a 25-year mechanical engineer, designer of

automotive special machines, has been laid off seven months.

The company he worked for was bought by Fiat and within two

years, began outsourcing the engineering to countries such as

Bosnia where engineers will work for $6 hourly. Our workers

can't compete with that obviously. The engineering department

is now closed completely, everything outsourced. He is 55,

laid off 2\1/2\ weeks short of his retirement vesting at 100

percent, can't draw social security and has been unable to

find work. The market is flooded with engineers because

outsourcing is happening all over . . . .

If we want to maintain the quality of our environment and

keep our families fed, we need legislation to address the

inequities in manufacturing standards globally, balancing

tariffs, something. Our workers can't compete with the

salaries outsourcing provides from other countries . . . .

And maintain our standard of living. I hear this story every single day in my State.

Before my time is up, I wish to address a couple of very important provisions from which Michigan has greatly benefited, in addition to the issues on tax policy and health care, and the other provisions.

The Advanced Technology Program is exactly the kind of program we ought to be doing in this country and we have been doing, although we have been fighting to keep it going. Now the President this year has zero in his budget for this program, even though we hear from the administration rather than tackling issues such as smart trade policies and currency manipulation, they say we should focus on education and innovation. Great. But when we have the innovative programs, such as ATP, they have zero in the budget to fund them.

What does this do? It allows industries, such as the automotive industry, to come together and partner with our universities on programs and research projects that allow them to be more competitive. It allows them to do activities such that got a headline yesterday in the Detroit Free Press:

Detroit-based automakers can take pride in a report on the

latest issue of influential and assiduously objective

Consumer Reports magazine that they have surpassed the

Europeans in vehicle reliability.

I know some of the ways they do that have been to come together in projects funded by the ATP to allow them to create greater reliability, greater efficiencies, to compete in the world economy.

The Boxer amendment makes sure we continue this important partnership. It is partly funded by the Federal Government and partly funded by the businesses. It is critical.

Madam President, I ask for an additional 5 minutes from my esteemed colleague on the Budget Committee.

I thank the Senator from North Dakota.

In Michigan, 154 different businesses have been involved with 68 completed and ongoing partnerships. They are joint ventures as well as single business applicants. These are exactly what we hear from the administration we ought to be doing: partnerships, public-private sector, working with the universities, small investment, big results.

The other important part of this amendment that relates to moving forward and being positive is the manufacturing extension partnership. It is interesting; some of us have been involved with agriculture and cooperative extension. This program is based on that model of bringing together the best management practices, cutting-edge information, and working with manufacturers to increase productivity and efficiency to compete in a global economy. A very small amount of dollars is involved in this particular program, and it yields tremendous results.

In Michigan, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership funding is credited with more than $80 million in sales impact, more than $32 million in cost reductions, and through the regional offices they have assisted over 250 companies in my State alone in achieving certification to industry quality standards. This is important. It helps our small and medium-size manufacturers.

It has had, in the past, strong bipartisan support. I was deeply disappointed in the Budget Committee when I offered an amendment to restore funding for MEP and ATP, and we did not have bipartisan support. It was a party-line vote. We certainly can correct that today because I know in the past there has been good bipartisan support for this amendment.

I simply say to my colleagues this amendment gives us an opportunity in a very broad sense to focus on what is the most critical issue facing our families and our businesses today, and that is the ability to compete in a global economy in a way that keeps jobs and our standard of living in the United States.

There is not a business I talk with that does not say: Give us a level playing field and we will do the rest. We know if, in fact, we have the right kind of policies and the right kind of investments, we can do that.

This budget is all about choices. It always is. We are asking for a small change rather than investing, once again, in the success of those privileged few who have been getting tax cuts and are set to get the most tax cuts right on down the line; that we take a portion of that and invest it back in the health of our U.S. economy and the strength of the economy for the future and in the quality of life of every American, and in those policies that will allow us to have the strongest possible businesses, the best workers, and the most successful workers in the world, because the Boxer amendment gives us the ability to do what we need to do to put us on the right track for the future and to continue the quality of life we all want for our families.

I strongly support the Boxer amendment. I thank my colleague from North Dakota for yielding me time. I am very hopeful we will see a strong bipartisan vote.

Mr. President, I was hoping to have 15 minutes if that is possible.

Greenville, MI.

Twenty-seven hundred jobs.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague for his eloquence, as usual. My friend from Illinois has addressed concerns we have in Michigan as well. There is nothing more important to us than making sure everyone has a good-paying job and the health benefits, pensions, and other job security that go along with it.

Last year Michigan lost more jobs than any other State. We understand what needs to happen for our families and how to create real economic security and to create jobs, to support a level playing field in trade, to tackle the rising cost of health care, to invest in education innovation. All of the things that make for the creation of a strong economic policy are what we should be doing. I thank my friend from Illinois for speaking to some very important issues.

One of my concerns as a member of the Budget Committee is in fact this budget does not adequately fund education. It eliminates some important areas of technology innovation. A program called the Advanced Technology Program, which we have used in Michigan with the auto industry and other manufacturing industries, partnering with our universities to create new, cutting-edge technologies that will allow us to compete in the global economy, has been proposed for elimination in this budget, and that is of great concern to me.

Those who don't support tackling the trade issues and creating a level playing field, those who say free trade, anything goes, point to education and innovation and say: That is how we compete. That is how we create jobs. Yet we see in this budget areas of tremendous need to invest in our people and create opportunity, areas that in fact are cut.

I wanted to speak for just a moment on some things that have been said in the debate about the challenge for us in total as it relates to the budget. We are told the problem is domestic spending, that, in fact, if we were to have only a small amount of growth in our domestic programs--education, protecting the environment, family health care, law enforcement, homeland security--somehow that is what we ought to be debating because that will make the biggest difference in reducing the deficit.

Certainly we want to fund programs in a way that provides accountability and efficiency and supports every precious dollar being used as wisely as possible. It is important to look at one comparison in terms of numbers when we look at where to go to focus our time to reduce the massive red ink that has been created in the last 3 years.

First, if you exclude the Department of Defense, all discretionary spending--so we are not talking about Medicare and Medicaid but all discretionary funding, education, Head Start, children's health care, family health care, senior programs, environmental protection, homeland security, the COPS Program, supporting firefighters, the Justice Department, everything we do outside of defense, everything we do outside of defense in the discretionary domestic budget--is costing $445 billion this year.

The deficit projected for this year, 1 year, the deficit during the same time period is $521 billion. We could eliminate every penny of investment in our children, every penny invested in protecting the environment, every penny for law enforcement and firefighters and homeland security, and every penny we provide to protect our parks and all of the other things we do in the domestic budget, we could eliminate every penny and we would still have a debt.

This is extraordinary.

I was fortunate to be in the House of Representatives in 1997 when we balanced the budget for the first time in 30 years. I was very proud of that vote. It was tough because we had to make choices about how to balance the budget. But we did it. We saw at the end of the decade, and as I began my term in the Senate, a debate about the largest budget surpluses in the history of the country, $5.6 trillion in surpluses. In 3 years we have gone to the largest deficit, over $3 trillion in deficit in just 3 years.

There is something else that has been talked about. We could wipe out every penny in domestic spending for the United States and not eliminate this deficit. So surely something else is at play. We have to look at the larger picture of what is going on.

That relates to the number shown on this chart. We have tax cuts that have

been voted upon by this body in 2001 and 2003. Both enacted and proposed tax cuts over the next 10 years will take $2.5 trillion of revenue. So we remove that from the Federal ledger, $2.5 trillion. That almost equals--it is pretty darn close--$2.4 trillion in Social Security surpluses. We have surpluses built up here. We take dollars away here.

Now we are being told, because Social Security surpluses are essentially being used to fund these tax cuts, we have a surplus on one side, we have a deficit on the other. They pretty much equal each other. Common sense would say the Social Security surplus is in fact funding these tax cuts.

Another way to look at that is, when we look at the amount of Social Security surplus that is saved in the next 10 years, it is zero. It is another way of saying the same thing. We save zero. It is being used. It is not being saved. It is not being put aside in the infamous lockbox we used to talk about and I still think is a good idea. Instead we save zero, and the amount of Social Security surplus that is spent is in fact the whole amount, $2.4 trillion.

At the same time this is happening, we hear from the Chairman of the Federal Reserve that because of the challenge in Social Security, because of the fact the surplus is being used because of the baby boomers and the long-time obligations that are coming, we should look at raising Social Security taxes or lowering benefits.

There is another option. The other option is don't use this money. Don't use the Social Security trust fund to fund tax cuts primarily for the privileged few.

There are some tax cuts--the child tax credit, the marriage penalty repeal, small business efforts, the lowest income tax bracket being lowered--that are helpful to everyone, and they make sense to help grow the economy. But the vast majority of the tax cuts are geared to the privileged few in this country at a time of war, at a time when we need to ask everyone to be sacrificing together so that we are not leaving mounds of red ink for our children.

When we look long term at the budget cuts as compared to Social Security, other people say, that is not true. Let's look at the reality over 75 years. The actuaries look over a 75-year period at the soundness of Social Security. Let's look over the next 75 years. If all of the tax cuts that have passed are made permanent, with those being proposed by the President, we will see a cost of $12.1 trillion over 75 years; $12.1 trillion of revenues essentially pulled out of the Federal Government.

What is the shortfall in Social Security? Shockingly, a Social Security shortfall over 75 years is $3.8 trillion. So it is absolutely accurate to say, as we look to the future and plan, as we know the baby boomers are coming, of which I am one, and we know the challenges of having more people in retirement and fewer people working, that we better pay attention to these numbers and understand that, unfortunately, the hole that has been dug as it relates to jeopardizing Social Security is one that was dug consciously.

We, in fact, can stop that. We can reverse it. We can protect Social Security for the future, as our leader on the Budget Committee tried to do in the last amendment where he said we are not going to use Social Security until we can totally protect Social Security; that we are not going to add to that deficit through either spending or tax cuts. That was the right amendment to adopt, and I commend him for it. I am deeply disappointed it was not adopted.

The budget is all about choices. It is all about our values and our priorities. I believe at a time of challenge and national security concerns, a time of war, it is all about being in this together as Americans as well, not asking some to sacrifice greatly and others not to sacrifice at all.

What is great about our country is that we come together and we chip in, and we certainly saw that after 9/11. We saw the wonderful spirit of what it means to be an American: people willing to chip in, be part of the positive solution, be part of helping each other. I believe they want a budget for the United States that reflects the same attitude-- all of us chipping in, all of us being willing to be responsible for the future for our children and not leave them trillions of dollars in red ink that they will then have to figure out how to pay for after we are gone.

That is not the legacy I want to leave for my children and grandchildren yet to come. I am very interested in having us put forward a budget that reflects the values and priorities of all Americans, not just a privileged few. That is what this debate will be about every day this week: What choices are we going to make? Are we going to do more tax cuts for the privileged few or are we going to keep everybody safe by fully funding all of the homeland security needs we have? Are we going to give more tax cuts for the privileged few or are we going to protect Social Security for the next 75 years, for the next generation?

We have choices to make, and I am very hopeful that the choices we will make will be ones that will make us proud when we look at the faces of our children in the future.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the budget. I first commend my ranking member, the Senator from North Dakota, for his incredible leadership and the way in which he has presented all of these issues and the challenges facing our country. There is no question that a huge hole has been dug with deficits as far as the eye can see.

I remember coming onto the Budget Committee as a new Member of the Senate in 2001, when the debate was what to do with the largest surplus in the history of the country. I remember when the Senator from North Dakota was talking about the baby boomers retiring and the need to put money aside to meet our obligations under Social Security and Medicare, and the need to look to the future.

Unfortunately, instead, what we saw were very short-term decisions that turned the largest budget surplus in the history of the country into the largest budget deficit in the history of the country, in only 3 years. It is astounding to see what has happened in the last 3 years.

But I thank him for his courage and his willingness to fight for what is important to my family and the people of Michigan and the people of North Dakota and people all across the country, for fighting for the right priorities for the future of our country.

I also want to take a moment to thank our chairman, who convened his last budget hearing and budget resolution markup this year. I appreciate the fact that he conducted a fair markup, as he has done since being chairman. We came to the conclusion and voted on a budget resolution that now is in front of us. He did it in a very fair way.

I also commend him for a couple of tough decisions he made that the administration was not willing to make. Chairman Nickles, unlike the administration, put funding in the budget for ongoing activities in Iraq. He put in a reserve fund of $30 billion. While I am concerned that is not enough to meet the request that will come back to us, I commend him for his leadership in understanding the number certainly is not zero, that there needs to be an

amount that is put aside into a reserve fund.

But this budget is so flawed in the end analysis, I am not sure where to begin in talking about it. It reminds me of Yogi Berra when he said: This is deja vu all over again. Because that is exactly where we are, given the direction we have gone in the last 3 years. Once again, we see a budget that is skewed to a privileged few while leaving middle- income families behind. It fails the credibility test, and it does not reflect our Nation's values and priorities. I hope the Senate will decide to reject it and go back to the drawing board and get it right.

Our Nation's budget is our chief economic tool. This is the fourth time President Bush has submitted a budget to Congress containing his economic plan for the Nation. Unfortunately, the President's last three budgets have led to major job loss, soaring deficits, rising debt, the looting of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and have failed to provide the necessary resources for our domestic priorities.

It seems every day we hear more and more economic bad news. Certainly in the State of Michigan every day there are headlines of job loss.

On Friday, the Labor Department said there were only 21,000 jobs created in February. This is anemic, according to many economists, and 285,000 jobs short of what the President said would happen just a couple of months ago. At this rate, it will take 9 years to recover all of the jobs lost under President Bush.

Unfortunately, the people of the State of Michigan can't wait that long. Our people need jobs now. Under the Bush Presidency, we have lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, many of them in the State of Michigan. Our manufacturing sector is in crisis. Every day we hear about another company shipping its jobs overseas to China or India or Mexico. In fact, the State of Michigan had the highest number of jobs lost last year.

Just last Friday, our Democratic Policy Committee held a hearing on the topic of shipping jobs overseas. At that hearing we heard testimony from Dave Doolittle who works at the Electrolux Refrigerator plant, Greenville, MI. They announced they were going to close and export 2,700 jobs to Mexico.

Despite major concessions offered by the workers and over $70 million in economic incentives from the State and the community--the community did everything right; the workers did everything right--Electrolux announced it will close next year, and 2,700 workers will be out of a job. That means 2,700 families will be without a breadwinner in a town of 9,000 people; 2,700 people losing their jobs out of 9,000. This type of job loss is devastating to these families.

In addition to that, when we look at the ripple effect and the suppliers involved and others, this can reach as high as 8,000 good- paying jobs with health care and pension plans throughout the entire region. This type of job loss is devastating for our families, and it is devastating to Dave Doolittle.

Mr. Doolittle has worked at the plant for over 23 years. He has a pension. He has health benefits. He has one child in college and two in high school. The plant closing will devastate his family. He asked us, who will pay for his two high school children to go to college? What is he going to do about health care for his family? Will they be able to keep their home?

To add insult to injury, Dave Doolittle and other employees will be working on an assembly line that has just received major investments of $100 million to improve it so the company can see what problems it has so they can then rebuild that and take it to Mexico. This highly productive, highly skilled workforce is working out all the kinks in the equipment that they will then pack up and send to Mexico.

Unfortunately, the President's budget and the budget before us will do nothing for Dave Doolittle and his family. He is a one of a growing number of hard-working families making up a part of another America. The other America includes not only the unemployed but millions of workers who have simply given up trying to find a job. If you include them in the unemployment rate, these discouraged workers push the unemployment numbers up to 9.6 percent, almost 1 in 10 of our workers.

People such as Dave Doolittle are not interested in a handout. This is a hard-working, skilled individual. What he is looking for is a good job and a chance to give his children and his grandchildren-to-be a better future. They want to provide their children with health care and an education so they can live the American dream. Isn't that what we all want for ourselves and for our children? They want the country to be strong and safe from terrorist attacks. They are counting on us to do what is right at home and abroad.

Unfortunately, the Bush economic policies have failed Dave Doolittle and his family on all counts. The President's budget has no plan to create jobs. It does nothing to help the uninsured and make health care more affordable. It contains proposed cuts for our schools, our police officers, our firefighters who are trying to protect us on the front lines against terrorist attacks.

On these priorities and more, Democrats tried to improve this budget in committee but were voted down on a party-line vote every time.

This budget also lacks credibility. For the last 3 years we were told one thing; yet something very different has happened over and over. The first tax cut produced massive deficits and harmed our economy. Despite all that, the President continues to push the same trickle-down economics that have failed. If these tax cuts were done by trial and error, they were an error.

Consider everything that was said and what actually has happened. We were told that the administration's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 would create jobs, but we have lost jobs, almost 3 million. We were told we would have a surplus, but we now have the largest deficit in the history of the country. We were told we would pay off the national debt, but now our national debt is higher than when President Bush took office. We were told the President's budget would not use Social Security trust funds, but now we are using every penny of the Social Security surplus to pay for tax cuts for the privileged few. We were told we needed to modernize Medicare and add a prescription drug benefit, with which I agree, but now we have a law that will privatize Medicare, hurt one in four seniors on Medicare, and cause them to lose their private insurance. It does little to help seniors purchase prescription drugs and does nothing to lower prices for all Americans.

We were told we would fund Leave No Child Behind and special education, but now we have failed to fully fund them. School districts are making cuts, shortening their school years, and laying off teachers. We were told we would have a new Department of Homeland Security that would help protect us, but in only the second budget cycle for this agency, we are already seeing budget cuts from last year, and we are falling far short of what is needed to protect our country.

We tried to make some changes to this budget in committee to have it better reflect our Nation's values and priorities. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. We tried to add fiscal discipline and reduce the deficit, but we lost on a party-line vote. We tried to fully fund Leave No Child Behind, but we lost on a party-line vote. We tried to restore the cuts to our firefighters, but we lost on a party-line vote.

Unfortunately, the Democrats were not the real losers, though. The American people were the losers by those votes.

We are in this budget and economic mess because this administration has valued wealth over work and the privileged few over our children's future. For the privileged few, this administration has given so much: most of the tax breaks, subsidies for insurance companies and HMOs, and $139 billion in profit for the pharmaceutical industry. For working families there has been very little. In fact, working men and women and their families are worse off than they were 3 years ago.

Three million workers have lost their jobs. As of the end of January, we have over 400,000 people who have lost their jobs who have been cut off of unemployment insurance. Eight million will see their pay cut because of new overtime regulations. Seven million people who work for the minimum wage have seen their pay eroded, and 12 million children were too poor to get the child tax credit.

Three years ago, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave the go- ahead for massive tax cuts for the top 1 percent, and this Congress, in conjunction with the President, enacted them, and now we have the largest deficits in history.

Unfortunately, now Chairman Greenspan is urging Congress and the President to make cuts in Social Security because we have these deficits. This means tax cuts for the privileged few are paving the way for cuts in Social Security for middle-income families. This is wrong.

How can we ask people who have worked their entire lives to have their Social Security cut to pay for tax cuts for our privileged few?

I mentioned earlier that budgets are all about values and priorities, and I truly believe that. We have to decide, do we want more tax cuts for the privileged few or do we want all Americans to be safe by providing full funding for firefighters, police officers, and other first responders?

Do we want more tax cuts for the privileged few or do we want a real comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit and lower prescription drug prices for everyone?

Do we want more tax cuts for the privileged few or quality schools with highly educated teachers and small class sizes and state-of-the- art technology for all of our children?

More tax cuts or quality education? More tax cuts or quality health care for our veterans who have served us and continue to serve us today? More tax cuts or hundreds of thousands of new jobs, rebuilding our Nation's highways?

We need a new vision. We need new priorities for America. We need a positive budget that will help all Americans raise their families, get access to health care, and enjoy their lives and their retirement. We need to restore our fiscal discipline, make critical investments to create jobs, and strengthen Medicare and Social Security. In short, we need to make the needs of American families our top priority again.

I will be supporting a number of amendments that will do that in this budget debate. I am hopeful we will be able to get bipartisan support to be able to do those things that American families are asking us to do, so at the end of the day we will have a budget that reflects what is important to the people we represent.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if I might respond to my colleague's comments, we certainly have heard similar comments before. There are a couple of concerns that I have. Like everything, it depends on how you look at the numbers and how you look at what is happening in terms of tax burden. The debate that has gone on relates to the income tax. It has nothing to do, first, with all of the taxes.

In this debate, there is always a conscious desire not to look at the payroll tax, which everybody pays and, in fact, it is skewed more to lower and middle-income people, because above a certain income you don't pay the payroll tax anymore.

So let's look at who is paying the payroll tax. Let's look at who pays sales tax, which is based on what you buy. It has no relationship to your income specifically, in terms of what the sales tax burden is. We know it falls more on low- and moderate-income individuals.

We can also look at property taxes. We look at a wide array of taxes in this country and we see that low- and middle-income people have a huge burden. When taxes get cut, it is not on the things they are paying; it is on those taxes--in this case, the income tax--which is paid by those who make higher incomes, higher percentages.

When we look at the total tax burden, we see that it is the middle- income people in this country who get squeezed on all sides. We should not add to that by extending a tax cut that continues to do that.

Let us look at the numbers, how the tax breaks stack up. The combined effect of the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, if you make over $1 million a year--that is in a year and a half--if you make over $1 million a year, your combined tax cut is $140,369. The average middle-income-tax payer will get a tax cut of $566. Look at these numbers. This is more than the majority of people in the country earn working hard every single year for their family. They work hard, they play by the rules, they are struggling with sending their kids to college and making sure they can buy their homes and pay the property taxes, and all of the other pressures on them. They are worried about losing their job now to overseas competition. Instead of selling products overseas,

they are worried their jobs are going to go overseas.

We have individuals who work hard every day, play by the rules, and the vast majority of them are earning less per year than what one person is going to get in an income tax cut who earns over $1 million a year. I do not begrudge in any way someone who earns over $1 million a year. That is not the point. The point is we are looking at this kind of a tax cut of $140,000 versus $566. There is a major issue of who is getting the tax benefit and who drives the economy, from where does the economic growth come. We know it is from middle-income-tax payers who are as consumers purchasing in the economy, but more broadly we look at this in terms of choices.

We know if we were to give them two-thirds of their tax cut this year instead of all of it, we could fully fund what has been reported is needed to keep us safe with homeland security--every single penny. It is a large number. We are told by Warren Rudman and the members who came together to look at all of our homeland security needs--not only police and fire and bioterrorism, borders and ports and chemical plants, but all of it--it will cost $15 billion, which is one-third of what those at the top are going to get back this year in a tax cut.

Would folks be willing to take a little bit less to know they are safe, that their family is safe, that the borders are safe, that the ports are safe, that they can call 9-1-1 and know they can get a first responder at their home if there is an emergency, or that the community can respond, that police and firefighters can talk to each other on the radio, have interoperability, which they do not have now?

All across Michigan, we do not have one system where everybody can talk to each other in case of an emergency. I think most of the people who do very well in this country would say, yes, that is important for my family, and that is a tradeoff I am willing to make; that is a choice I am willing to make.

This is about choices. It is not about class warfare. There are huge differences in what people will be getting back. It is not about penalizing or in any way demonizing people who make over $1 million a year. This is about choices. When we see red for as far as the eye can see, when we see that this year's projected deficit, just this year's deficit of $521 billion is more than the entire investments outside defense--take defense away--all of our domestic investments, all of our domestic budget: homeland security, education, health care, law enforcement, protecting the environment, parks--we could wipe out the entire domestic budget, except for defense, and not equal the deficit hole that the administration has put us in just this year.

It is a matter of choices and saying to someone who is doing very well: We need you to help. We need you to be willing to make sacrifices just as every family is, just as our men and women in the armed services are making in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is about choices. If the choice is keeping every American safe, making sure we can protect ourselves from terrorist attacks across this country, and asking those doing very well, who have reaped the benefits of this country, to help share in paying for that, I think the majority of them would say yes. That is something we all are willing to do.

This is always a question of choices. It is a question of priorities. It is a question of values.

As the chart shows, it is also a question of fairness for people. If we look at the difference in the average middle-income-tax payer and the cut they will get in 2006, and those with incomes over $1 million and the cut they will get, we see that in addition to this disparity, this middle-income-tax payer is paying a payroll tax, sales taxes, property taxes, and contributing greatly to the payment of services in their community.

This budget is about what is fair for everybody, what is the right thing to do to keep us strong fiscally, how do we put ourselves on a path of not asking our children to pay the burden of the debt that is being accumulated, how do we make sure we are smart in terms of our investments in the economy to grow jobs, put money in the pockets of middle-income people, small businesses that drive the economy--the majority of new jobs are coming from small business--how do we make sure that is a priority for us, and how do we make sure we are creating a set of priorities and a vision for the future that our families are asking us to do?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I simply, first, wanted to thank my colleague from North Dakota, and to stand in support of everything he has said. Tomorrow, our friend from North Dakota will be chairing an important hearing. I will have two individuals from Michigan from a small town called Greenville. I appreciate the fact that we have someone who will be sharing their story tomorrow.

But just to reinforce what they said, this is a town of 9,000 people in rural west Michigan. They make refrigerators. They make Frigidaire refrigerators, and they work for Electrolux. Of the 9,000 people in town, 2,700 people work making refrigerators. They have added a third shift. They make a profit. Electrolux indicated that they make a profit in the United States. But they decided they could make a bigger profit if they moved to Mexico and paid $2.50 an hour with no health benefits. So that is what they have decided to do.

We see a community now that is losing 2,700 jobs. When you count the businesses in the surrounding area that are affected, it is 8,000 jobs.

I agree with the Senator's conclusion. I said to the folks at Electrolux: At $2.50 an hour with no health benefits, who is going to afford to buy your refrigerators making $2.50 an hour?

Mr. President, I support the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut. I think it is the least we can do on this issue. We need to set an example. If we can't as a Federal Government set an example for our own country through our own contracts and our own outsourcing policies, then how can we ask others to do the same thing?

As I indicated, we have one community losing 2,700 jobs to Mexico. We lost more jobs last year than any other State. We have lost over 167,000 jobs in Michigan in the last 3 years. As I look at the paper every day--literally I can go to papers throughout Michigan, from the Upper Peninsula to Detroit to west Michigan to southern Michigan--there will be stories of plant closings, of job outsourcing or exporting of jobs, and layoffs.

This is the most critical issue facing the people of our country. Therefore, it needs to be the most serious issue facing us in the Senate. We need to spend whatever time is necessary, take whatever actions are necessary and put in place a set of policies that stops the exporting of jobs, that creates a level playing field for our businesses and our workers. If we give them a level playing field, they will compete and they will win. But we don't have that now.

We don't have that when it comes to the issue of manipulating currency, which China and Japan are doing. When it costs a Michigan business up to a 40-percent tax to sell into China, and when Chinese products come back and are sold at artificially lower prices, and our government doesn't do anything about it when we could, there is something wrong.

Why does China do that? They want us to move the plants to China. They want to make it as difficult as possible to sell goods in China because they want the plants there. We don't want the plants there. We want to be able to take advantage of smart trade policies and sell goods and services to China, Mexico, Japan, and all around the world. That is what trade is all about, and that is how we make it positive for us. But right now we have a situation where instead of having smart trade policies, instead of addressing those issues to create a level playing field, we are seeing a set of policies that actually encourages a race to the bottom by saying to folks in Greenville, MI: The only way we are going to stay here is if you make $2.50 an hour with no health benefits.

What does that say for the future of our country? What does that say, if any business could say that? The Federal Government could say that. We will not have a middle class and we will not have middle-income families. We will not have what has made us great as a country in terms of opportunity and small business growth, if we don't stop this.

That is why I am very pleased to be supporting the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut. We need to lead by example, and that is what this amendment does. It says while we are asking that businesses in the private sector change policies, and we are asking others not to export, we ought not to be exporting jobs either. We need policies that will stop that and invest in our own workers and in our own people.

I hope that rather than secondary amendments and other possibilities of slowing this amendment down or killing this amendment, we would be joining together--all 100 Members--in saying we do not support the report of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. We do not support Mr. Mankiw's comments that exporting jobs is good for our families, for our businesses. We reject that.

We come together saying the Federal Government needs to lead by example. If we do the right thing and put the right incentives in place, we can then turn to others and ask them to do the same thing. This is about jobs. It is about the future of our country and our quality of life. I hope we will join in supporting the Dodd amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Will the Senator yield?

Would the Senator agree on its face that it would appear his amendment is about whether folks support that report and if, in fact, they believe, as the Senator said, that exporting jobs is a good idea, folks can vote against your amendment. This is really a time to stand up and say yes or no.

Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleague from Kentucky on a very important amendment. I also appreciate Chairman Grassley and our ranking member, Senator Baucus, as well, for their leadership and their support in working with us on this important amendment.

Our amendment, as my colleague indicated, speeds up the tax cut for all U.S. manufacturers to address the current manufacturing crisis.

This particular amendment would increase the tax relief in 2004--five times more than in the underlying bill--and, in fact, would provide about $6.5 billion in relief to manufacturers and small businesses over the next 5 years.

My colleague has gone into the specifics of a lot of this amendment. What I would like to do is spend my time talking about why this is so critical.

We have a crisis in manufacturing in this country. Nowhere is that more evident than in my home State of Michigan where last year we had the largest number of jobs lost in the country and the highest unemployment rate. This is an issue that is my top priority.

When we look at what has happened in terms of manufacturing jobs over the last number of decades, we see that we are back now to the lowest point since the Depression and when Herbert Hoover was President of the United States.

We have seen huge drops in jobs. My great concern is that even though we are seeing an increase as it relates to the stock market and positive indications, we have not yet seen that translate into jobs. I believe that is for many factors that relate to the pressures on manufacturers in a global economy.

When we look at the fact that the United States has lost over 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in the last 3 years, this is a crisis.

Let me speak specifically to a couple of examples I have talked about.

When we look at this number in Michigan compared to other States, there is a 19-percent job loss. We have seen literally, every single day, headlines in the papers about people losing their jobs, plants closing and going to other countries, the exporting of jobs, and layoffs occurring all around Michigan; not only in manufacturing, I might add, but when we look at the outsourcing issue, we are looking to white-collar jobs, technology jobs, engineers, health care workers, a wide variety of jobs. But we know in our country--and I believe very strongly coming from Michigan--that we have to have a foundation, a manufacturing base to have a strong economy and a strong middle class.

In Michigan, I am very proud of the fact that we make products and we grow products. That is the basis of our economy. Frankly, it has been the basis of the U.S. economy since the beginning of our country.

We are seeing a huge drop--on down to 2003--in what has happened in terms of jobs in Michigan.

One example I talked about earlier today is a plant called Electrolux in Greenville, MI, a community of 9,000 people in the western rural part of the State, where 2,700 people are employed to make refrigerators, Frigidaire, in fact, through Electrolux. They have added a third shift and the company says they are making a profit. But they have also indicated they could make a bigger profit if they moved to Mexico and paid $2.50 an hour and no health benefits. So they are closing. We have Michigan residents here today to speak at a hearing tomorrow about the devastation this loss of jobs will create.

We have to do everything possible to provide incentives and support for manufacturers to remain in the United States and keep our jobs here.

There are a lot of factors, when we look at what is happening with Electrolux and when we look at what is happening in Steelcase in Grand Rapids, MI, cutting 77 of its skilled workers.

Wohlert, in Lansing, MI, has laid off 245 workers because of the bad economy and overseas competition; Easton, in Marshall, MI, indicates they would be cutting 185 of their 285 jobs and moving plants to Mexico; Federal Mogul in St. Johns and Greenville, MI, Lear Corporation in Traverse City, Gidding & Lewis in Menominee, Straits Steel in Ludington. The stories go on and on.

There are many reasons for that. We know we need to be smart about trade policies where we are encouraging the creation of a middle class and raising the standards around the world, raising standards in Mexico and in China and other places, where we are competing and finding our jobs are moving, and by raising that standard of living. Instead of losing or exporting our jobs, we can export our product and they will have a middle class so they can buy our products.

I indicated to the folks that Electrolux may be able to move the plant to Mexico and pay $2.50 an hour with no health benefits, but the question I had was, who was going to buy the refrigerators? Certainly not citizens if they make $2.50 an hour with no health benefits.

We have to be doing everything possible to create a race up instead of a race down. This amendment is a very important part of the equation to do that. We need to make sure we are providing incentives and tax relief for manufacturers which create jobs in the United States. This amendment, in fact, will do that.

We also know we need to tackle issues such as currency manipulation, where China, Japan, and other countries basically create a tax for our manufacturers. When a Michigan manufacturer sells a product into China they have to sell it at a higher price. It can be up to 40 percent equivalent of a tax into China. When Chinese businesses sell in the United States, they can artificially lower their prices. Why do they do that? They want us to move the plant to China instead of selling our goods to China. We need to tackle that. If the Secretary of the Treasury would simply certify that, in fact, currency manipulation is occurring, there are actions we can take to level the playing field. That needs to happen as well.

Senator Schumer has a bill--in fact, I am a cosponsor--and I hope in addition to the amendment today and the legislation before the Senate, we would pass that very important legislation to level the playing field for our businesses and our workers in America.

We also need to address health care costs. We need to do it in a way that addresses the fact that our manufacturers have health care costs tied to employment in this country as part of doing business and in other countries they do not. We need to tackle that in a way that does not cost our workers in terms of their health care coverage or increase their costs. We can do that.

We also need to be addressing a number of issues that deal with trade.

The reality is, the place to start right now is with this bill. This amendment provides $6.5 billion more in tax relief and assistance to manufacturers who create American jobs.

I have another amendment I will offer that will add to what I believe is a very important part of the picture. That is, this tax deduction phases out over the next 10 years and is then available to all manufacturers, not just domestic manufacturers. I believe that is a mistake and we ought to make sure it remains only for those creating jobs in America. I look forward to debating that even further.

I am pleased today to be sponsoring this amendment with my colleague. I should also indicate I have legislation I had introduced last fall with my colleague from South Carolina, Senator Graham, on this very subject that included both the manufacturing tax credit and eliminated the phaseout so that those dollars and the tax credit would be focused on our domestic manufacturers.

What we see today is not only an issue that affects major employers. It is important to say this is a small business issue as well. The majority of manufacturing establishments are small businesses. The vast majority of them have 20 employees or less. This is not only an issue for our major manufacturers--and certainly in Michigan we are very proud of our large manufacturers; they are part of our auto industry and our high-tech industry, and we are very proud of our furniture industry and all of the other industries we have in Michigan--but this is very much a small business issue, as well.

Let me finally say as we help manufacturers, we are also helping our economy and our families in terms of standard of living. When we look at the average service-sector salary and a manufacturing-sector salary, we see a major difference. Within our families, our workers are able to have a good manufacturing job, they are able to have dollars in their pocket to care for their families, to buy that house, to send the kids to college, to be able, in Michigan, to buy that snowmobile or the cottage

up north and able to have the quality of life we all want for ourselves and our families.

The way to stimulate this economy, the way to keep consumer confidence moving and to keep all of the economic indicators moving in the right direction is to support our manufacturing sector in our country. That is what the bill does; that is what this amendment does.

I hope my colleagues will join together in a bipartisan way to support this particular amendment which will add significant support for our manufacturers. It will do it immediately this year because they need help now.

Will my friend yield?

Madam President, I want to take a moment, first, to thank my colleague for his kind words and for his leadership. Secondly, I do want to indicate cosponsors on our side of the aisle to the amendment: Senators Levin, Feinstein, Kohl, and Rockefeller. I very much appreciate their support.

Mr. President, I note with sadness the passing of Peter Vlcko, a hero for all of humanity. When immense love and bravery coalesce in one person, as they did in Mr. Vlcko, amazing things are bound to happen.

And they did.

Mr. Vlcko's love for humankind manifested itself in his brave fight against evils such as totalitarianism, fascism, and anti-Semitism. During the dark days of World War II, at huge and constant risk to his own life, he fought against the pro-German Slovak Government and rescued over 20 Jews from deportation and death by the Nazis.

His heroic efforts have not gone unnoticed. Among other awards and recognitions, in 1981, Mr. Vlcko received the Silver Medal for Righteous Gentiles from Israel. With descendants of the Jews he saved looking on, he stood witness as a tree was planted in his honor at the top of a hill in Jerusalem. His name has also been forever memorialized in a large granite relief in the Garden of the Righteous at the Holocaust Memorial center in West Bloomfield.

Born in a Slovak village in 1912, Mr. Vlcko volunteered for military service immediately upon completion of his secondary education. He rose quickly through the ranks until the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia by the German military in 1939 forced him to be disarmed and reassigned to a war college in Bratislava. He took a break from his studies to serve a tour of duty on the Russian front, but his service was cut short when he sustained shrapnel wounds and an injury to his left leg from the heavy mortar fire. Returning to his studies, he met his future wife, Georgina Reichsfeld.

The strict anti-Semitic laws could not deter his love for Georgina, who was of Jewish ancestry. At a risk to Mr. Vlcko's life, the two entered into wedlock.

As the danger to his young bride and her family mounted, he hid them until he could obtain false identification papers. His perilous efforts did not stop with his bride's family. He continued on, obtaining false papers for twenty other Jews, which identified them as ``essential personnel,'' preventing certain deportation and death.

Summoning more courage still, Mr. Vlcko offered his assistance to an attempt to overthrow the Nazi-friendly regime in Slovakia. Through a variety of disguises, such as a shoemaker and a woman, Mr. Vlcko managed to evade German forces and twice to escape capture. Forced into hiding for the remainder of the war, he was separated from his family for a year when he escaped into Bavaria.

Once reunited, Mr. Vlcko and his family immigrated to the United States, where they began a new life in Michigan. After attending a community college, he went to work for Ford Motor Company.

His new surroundings, however, could not make him forget his violent past. Through his narrative, he tried to educate people on the horrors of fascism and anti-Semitism. To do so, he both lectured throughout the United States and Canada and published an 860-page autobiography. People needed to know and, thanks to him, we do.

In 1991, Mr. Vlcko was granted honorary Israeli citizenship, and both he and his wife regained their Czechoslovakia citizenship, which was taken from them when they fled Czechoslovakia after the Communists seized power in the 1948 coup. In fact, he had been living under a death sentence issued by the Czech government until 1989. He has been honored by the Czech President and Czech Minister of Defense and has often been the guest of honor of the Czech and Slovak Ambassadors to the United States.

Mr. Vlcko is survived by his wife, Georgina, and their four children. Despite what severe images a background as a soldier might evoke, his wife affectionately describes the full picture: ``He loved his family very much and worked his whole life to keep them safe.''

Mr. Vlcko left behind more than a family, however; he left behind a legacy of love and hope embodied in the children of the Jews he saved and an outstanding example of courage and decency in the face of darkness and tyranny.

It is that legacy that I am sure will surround him as he rests in peace.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation with my distinguished colleague, Senator Carl Levin, that would protect my State of Michigan from being forced to participate in an experiment that could lead to the unraveling of Medicare as we know it.

This project, mandated under the Medicare reform bill approved in late 2003, effectively replaces Medicare in the designated demonstration area with private voucher coverage in six sites in 2010. I have strongly opposed the portion of the Medicare bill that authorizes this project, and I particularly oppose Michigan seniors being forced to participate in this ill-advised experiment.

If Michigan is included in one of these areas, then older and sicker seniors who want to stay in traditional Medicare will be forced to pay higher premiums. This is wrong, and my bill will stop this from happening to my constituents.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation with my distinguished colleague, Senator Carl Levin, that would protect my State of Michigan from being forced to participate in an experiment that could lead to the unraveling of Medicare as we know it.

This project, mandated under the Medicare reform bill approved in late 2003, effectively replaces Medicare in the designated demonstration area with private voucher coverage in six sites in 2010. I have strongly opposed the portion of the Medicare bill that authorizes this project, and I particularly oppose Michigan seniors being forced to participate in this ill-advised experiment.

If Michigan is included in one of these areas, then older and sicker seniors who want to stay in traditional Medicare will be forced to pay higher premiums. This is wrong, and my bill will stop this from happening to my constituents.

Mr. President, I rise to engage in a colloquy with the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the Banking Committee. The SAFETEA bill provides over $656 million in transit formula funding to the State of Michigan and while this represents a 53 percent increase over our funding under TEA-21, it still falls short of our transit needs. The Michigan Department of Transportation, MDOT, estimates that their routine Federal capital needs over the next 6 years just to maintain existing systems and services would exceed $1 billion. This comes at a time when Michigan's ridership continues to grow. Over the life of TEA-21, Michigan's transit ridership has grown from 81.6 million passengers in 1997 to over 89 million passengers in 2002--close to a 10 percent increase. The Senior Senator from Michigan and I have submitted a request on behalf of MDOT to help close this funding gap. The request would provide MDOT with $120 million in the 5309 Bus Discretionary account over the next 6 years. Would the chairman and ranking member work with us in conference to provide MDOT with this necessary funding to support Michigan's transit needs?

We thank the chairman and ranking member.

golden gate bridge

Will the leader yield for a question as well?

Mr. President, on behalf of the men and women of Michigan I thank the Democratic leader for his comments this morning. We read headlines every single day of jobs being lost to other countries, outsourcing, plants that are leaving. It is clear to me we have an administration more focused on wealth than valuing work, as the distinguished Senator from Illinois indicated, with a whole series of policies that do not reward work.

I wonder if the leader might comment on the fact this is a race to the bottom. What they are saying to Americans is they should work for $2.50 an hour or $1 an hour or instead of being a computer programmer here, earning $50,000 a year, if you earn $15,000 a year, maybe we won't outsource your job. Isn't this a way to eliminate the middle class? How do they, in fact, purchase the cars and the refrigerators and computers and have the quality of life they want, send their children to college, be able to afford a quality of life as Americans, if this is a race to the bottom?

Would the leader agree this is now a race to the bottom and a threat to the middle class and their way of life?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I wish to take a moment to comment about the report that was just released yesterday, the White House Annual Economic Report of the President, because I was stunned to see the statements regarding the economic report to the country as it relates to jobs.

I invite any member of the group who put this report together or anyone from the administration to visit us in Michigan and see literally every day now the headlines in the papers. It doesn't matter if you are in Detroit or Grand Rapids or in northern Michigan or southern Michigan; we have headlines about jobs that are leaving this country and going overseas, good-paying jobs, white-collar jobs, blue- collar jobs, service jobs, and manufacturing jobs.

When we look at the report of economic advisers and we hear them saying, ``President Bush's top economist yesterday said the outsourcing of U.S. service jobs to workers overseas is good for the Nation's economy,'' I wonder what nation are they talking about. Whose economy are they talking about? It is certainly not good for our economy when people are losing their jobs.

Let me go on to some of the other statements that are quoted in today's Washington Post:

Shipping jobs to low cost countries is the latest

manifestation of the gains from trade.

These were not the gains from trade I was hearing about. I was hearing that we were going to actually be creating more markets to produce more goods and services that would be increasing jobs, not losing jobs.

It says:

Just as U.S. consumers have enjoyed lower prices from

foreign manufacturers, so, too, should they benefit from

services being offered by overseas companies that have lower

labor costs.

It is stunning to me that we would not be concerned about the outsourcing of jobs, good-wage jobs to other countries. I commend any of my colleagues to watch, as I do nightly, Lou Dobbs on CNN with the continuing critique of what is happening to our country, including service jobs.

I have friends and constituents in Michigan who have been in good- paying service jobs who are now unemployed and have lost their insurance, many of them struggling to see whether they will lose their homes as a result of having lost their job. They would not agree with this report. What we are seeing is the assumption that somehow moving out of this country to lower cost labor countries, whether it is goods or services, is ultimately better for the United States. Now think about this for a moment. They are embracing a race to the bottom that will only eliminate middle-class America.

We had a recent situation occur in Greenville, MI, a small community of 9,000 people. There are 2,700 people who work at the local refrigeration plant, manufacturing refrigerators, Electrolux. They added a third shift. They have been productive. They make money. But the company came in this fall and said even though they make money, they make a profit in Greenville, MI, and people are productive, they could make more money if they went to Mexico and paid $2.50 an hour with no health benefits.

Well, I am sure that is true. I am sure any business could make more money if they paid $2.50 an hour with no health benefits. I am sure they could make more money if they paid $1 an hour or 50 cents an hour with no health benefits. My question to the management was: Who will be able to afford to buy your refrigerator? Who will be able to afford to buy our automobiles? Who will be able to afford a middle-class standard of living in this country if this is only about a race to the bottom?

When we look at what is happening in our country today, not only in manufacturing but in the service industry, we see a race to leave the country because instead of having trade policies that encourage a middle class in Mexico, in China, in India, and other places around the world so they bring up their standard of living, so they can have good wages and buy our products, we see instead pressure on our businesses and our workers to lower our standard of living, to lower our costs, and there is a race to the bottom.

This race ultimately will cost us our way of life and our middle class. But that is how we are different and strong. That is why we are the greatest country in the world--because we have a strong middle class.

I am extremely concerned when I see these kinds of statements. In fact, also quoted in this article from the Washington Post is a statement by Franklin J. Fargo, vice president of International Economic Affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers:

It is kind of a flip thing to say when people are losing

their jobs.

I would agree with that. It is more than flip; it is outrageous to say we as a country somehow benefit by the outsourcing and the elimination of jobs.

In recent years, companies have shipped out software engineering jobs, data entry, customer service, hospital jobs, as well as manufacturing. We know when we pick up the phone--in fact, I picked up the phone one time to talk to a credit card representative and asked where they were. They said: A facility near you. Well, I knew it was not a facility near me in Michigan, where I was calling from, but it was a facility overseas.

I think often of a friend of mine who goes to my church in Lansing, MI. He is a trained engineer, a very competent individual who has lost his job. He told me he is now working for $19 an hour with no health benefits, that he is now struggling with whether he will be able to keep their home with kids in college. That is very real.

I urge those making statements that losing jobs to other countries is a good idea to talk to somebody who has in fact lost their job and may lose their home, and may not be able to send their kids to college, may not be able to buy that new car or keep the house, the cottage up north, be able to do those things that spend dollars in our economy, buy that new refrigerator. How in the world have we gotten to a point where we do not understand the basic economics of people being able to have a good wage so they can purchase goods and services and care for their families and be successful in this country? We know there are serious issues.

Looking at something else in this report, it says: Indeed, outsourcing health care jobs to lower wage countries could help control the upward spiral of health care costs. When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make it here.

First, as someone who has worked on health care issues and helped to lead efforts to try to move us to lower health care costs, health care prices, the idea of saying the way we are going to lower health care prices is by losing jobs rather than tackling the big issues of lowering prescription drug prices, rather than allowing Medicare to negotiate group discounts under the new Medicare bill, which we did not do because the prescription drug company wants to be able to stop us from lowering prices--instead of addressing those things that will bring costs for businesses down, the suggestion is we should export health care jobs. So maybe if all of our nurses, doctors, and health care workers were all in another country where they were making less, we would be lowering our health care costs.

I find this report and the comments in it and the public comments in the paper extraordinarily out of touch with what is happening to the people of our country and what is good for our country.

I argue instead that in fact we do need to tackle health care costs. It is a major issue for businesses, large and small. In a global economy, it is a major issue for them to be able to compete. It is a major issue for our families and workers who are being asked to pay more, take a pay cut, pay more in a premium or copays. We should tackle that by addressing what is actually causing the health care costs to go up--the lack of competition, an explosion in prescription drug pricing. If we want to lower prescription drug prices and lower health care costs, rather than having the jobs go to Canada, let us open the border and bring the prescription drugs back from Canada at a cost of 50 percent less. We could do that tomorrow if the administration

would look at what is best for our families instead of what is best for the pharmaceutical lobby.

We do not have to export jobs. We can import safe prescription drugs that are actually made here, which we help to produce, that taxpayer dollars subsidize, that are then allowed to be sold in other countries around the world for half the price.

I agree, health care costs are a huge issue for our businesses, and we need to tackle it in a way that brings down prices, that maintains our quality and does not say the way we are going to cut costs is to export our jobs.

As I mentioned earlier, I also ask all of us to rethink what we are doing on trade. We must trade in a global economy, obviously. But our trade laws need to focus on incentives and on policies that will increase the standard of living in other countries, not decrease ours.

I also would ask the administration to work with us on issues to level the playing field. We know China, Japan, and others manipulate their currency. What does that mean? It means it costs us more to sell into China. Our businesses can pay up to a 40 percent tax, essentially, for selling something into China because they want us to move the plant there. It costs us more to sell to them. It costs them less to bring in goods.

If the Treasury Secretary will simply certify that this is going on, we have, then, the authority to begin to do something about it; we have legislation that will give us an opportunity to do something about it. I am proud to be a cosponsor, with Senator Schumer, in that effort.

There are actions we can take to level the playing field. There is no doubt in my mind that if we give American businesses and American workers a fair shot, a level playing field, we will win every time. We can compete when the rules are fair. But instead of addressing those things, we have a report coming before us that says outsourcing of U.S. jobs to overseas workers is good for our Nation's economy. With all due respect, I think they should go back to the drawing board and try this again.

I would just say one other thing. The Annual Economic Report predicted 2.6 million new payroll jobs by the end of the year. Certainly we would all greatly love to see that be the case. But last year they reported 1.7 million jobs would be created and the year before they said 3 million jobs would be created. Instead, the Nation lost 53,000 payroll jobs last year, according to the Labor Department.

Instead of proposing, and suggesting, and proclaiming millions of new jobs without the right policies to actually make it happen, I hope we will place on our agendas the loss of jobs--manufacturing jobs, service jobs, professional jobs--happening in this country, all across our Nation, and certainly in my State of Michigan, where we have paid dearly for policies that have not worked. I hope we make this our top priority and that we focus on those things that will stop the exodus from the United States and the exporting of American jobs around the world.

That is right.

That is right.

Right.

That is right.

If I might ask a question of my friend from Florida, as a former insurance commissioner, he certainly understands the insurance side of this. I think, first of all, he is absolutely right. I think the two major drivers for health care now are the explosion of prescription drug prices and the fact that every time a person loses his or her insurance and that person walks into an emergency room to get care and is sicker than they otherwise would be, and so on, people with insurance end up seeing their rates go up because there is a smaller and smaller group of people who actually have insurance, and they pay more and more. Wouldn't that be the philosophy?

If I might ask my friend another question, wouldn't he share my amazement that, in this new economic report, the proposal is that the way we lower health care costs is to export the jobs? Export the nurses, export the doctors, radiological assistants, whoever it is--that is how we should bring down health care costs? Lose our jobs to other countries? Does that make sense?

This report actually is the new report from the economic advisers to the President on the state of the economy and jobs, where they are saying outsourcing to other countries is, in fact, a good thing and, in fact, outsourcing health care jobs will actually bring health care costs down.

I was stunned at what I was reading. Certainly, it is not something I know the people in Michigan are going to be very happy to hear about.

Absolutely.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Manufacturing Opportunities to Revitalize our Economy's JOBS Act, or the MORE JOBS Act. We are facing a manufacturing job crisis in this country, and that is why I am introducing this bill to help our U.S. manufacturers to create manufacturing jobs here at home.

Since January of 2001, the State of Michigan has faced devastating losses in the manufacturing sector. While the U.S. has lost 3.3 million private sector jobs--2.5 million in the manufacturing sector, Michigan has lost 162,300 manufacturing jobs. That is 18 percent of the state's manufacturing employment. In other words, 1 in 6 Michiganians has lost their manufacturing job in the last 2 years.

It is an unfortunate fact that Michigan is one of the leading states in the country in manufacturing job loss. Indeed, while the U.S. employment rate is around 6 percent, Michigan's unemployment rate is currently around 7.6 percent. In some parts of Michigan, the unemployment rate is as high as 12 percent.

The people of Michigan and the people of the United States need relief to help revitalize our economy. In the midst of these troubling times, we are faced with a new challenge: complying with a World Trade Organization (WTO) decision finding that our Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) and Extraterritorial Income (ETI) tax code must be reformed to meet international trade law requirements. I understand that our colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee have been and continue to work diligently on this issue. Our country is one that plays by the rules and we will ultimately fix our tax code.

The tax benefits of the FSC and ETI, however, are valued at nearly $50 billion over 10 years. We cannot just take away these benefits to our American manufacturers without creating new tax relief for them. The practical effect of that would be a $50 billion tax increase. And, that is why we must create a new tax credit for our U.S. manufacturers.

The MORE JOBS Act that I am introducing today lays out a vision on how I believe we should reform the code. First of all it, it phases out the non-compliant FSC/ETI tax code over the next three years.

Then, to help our U.S. manufacturers, the bill creates a Manufacturers' Tax Credit for domestic companies. A company, under my proposal, would be allowed to deduct 9 percent of its domestic production income before it has to figure its tax liability. In effect, this would result in a new tax rate for our U.S. manufacturers that are 3 percent lower--32 percent instead of 35 percent. And, my bill would make this effective immediately, not phased in as others have suggested.

The credit would be extended to a wide array of companies: small businesses, large businesses and agricultural cooperatives. So whether it is a small furniture manufacturer in western Michigan, a tool and die company in Grand Rapids, or one of our automakers in metro Detroit, companies will be rewarded for their domestic production. And, our farmers will benefit, too.

I often say that we in Michigan pride ourselves on what we make and what we grow. These two activities are vital to a strong economy, and our farmers would also benefit under my bill.

Farmers themselves, if they have at least one employee, will directly benefit under my bill, since they qualify for the tax benefit as manufacturers. In addition, agricultural cooperatives would also receive this tax benefit. Farmers often belong to an agricultural cooperative which is covered under my bill. Agricultural cooperatives do the processing, handling, storing, and marketing for their members. For example, a farmer will sell his specialty crop to the cooperative. The cooperative then takes the farmer's crop and puts it with other farmers' produce and then stores and prepares the produce for sale to a food processing company. The coop passes its profits on to the members of the cooperative based on the amount of business each member does with the cooperative. So the tax benefits for the cooperative can be passed-through to farmer members of the coop.

Finally, one of the cornerstones of my legislation is that my bill would create incentives for companies to keep jobs in the U.S. and to bring more jobs to our country. The MORE JOBS Act would encourage companies to keep their manufacturing in the U.S. by basing the amount of their tax credit on how much of their manufacturing is done in the U.S. Companies that have all of their manufacturing in the U.S. would receive the full 3 percent tax credit. Companies that have much their manufacturing outside of the U.S. would receive a reduced credit in proportion to their U.S. manufacturing. While other proposals being circulated eventually eliminate this incentive, my bill would make this incentive permanent.

Why would we want to reward companies if they send their jobs overseas? We want to reward those who are contributing to our economy and putting Americans to work here at home.

I want to work closely with my colleagues to reform our manufacturing

tax code. In doing so, we will make our country stronger, our economy more resilient, and we can create millions of new good jobs in the manufacturing and agricultural sector. But we must do it carefully and with a priority on our U.S. manufacturing base. I urge my colleagues to support the MORE JOBS Act.