Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 3839, which was introduced earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third time and passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate; and that any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 644, submitted earlier today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I appreciate the comments of Senator Klobuchar, who has been a leader on moving forward on this legislation on food safety. It is so important to our country. I am so sorry that pretty much one obstructionist, or a whole party of obstructionists, unfortunately, have blocked this bill, and one Senator in particular has kept us from moving on this bipartisan bill. It is one of the sad chapters of this Senate that a small minority, again, can block us from doing the things we ought to do in our jobs, what we ought to be doing.

I want to talk for a moment about some positive developments in my State. A couple of weeks ago I went to Lordstown, OH. It has a General Motors plant. I believe Governor Strickland was asked to drive the first red Cruze, Chevy Cruze, their highest mileage new car, off the line, followed by a white Cruze and a blue Cruze. You know the symbolism of that and the beauty of that and the inspiration of that in many ways was all about what has happened in the last 18\1/2\ months to the auto industry.

I am particularly proud. I do not come to the floor and endorse one particular company ever. I am not doing that. I am proud of this because of what it looked like a year and a half ago.

Now, 18 months ago we remember what happened: Barack Obama took the oath of office. The banks had about imploded. We knew the financial system was close to collapse. We knew the auto industry was facing bankruptcy.

President Obama took office in the midst of losing 700,000 jobs a months. President Bush was leaving office, having left us--the largest in history at that time--the largest budget deficit in the history of the United States of America. That is what we started with 18\1/2\ months ago.

When you think about what it meant in the auto industry--I know my State is considered an auto State. New Mexico may not be, but New Mexico has some number of component manufacturers and a lot of car dealerships.

The car dealerships in Taos or Albuquerque or Truth or Consequences or anywhere necessarily in the State are often so involved in the community: helping Little League, helping scholarships, all of the kinds of things the good citizens, especially auto dealers, do. But I think about what this meant.

So 18 months ago when this auto industry was about to crash, literally--pardon the pun--what it would have meant in my State, it would have meant tens of thousands of retirees would have possibly lost significant amounts of pension and health care they had as 25-, 30-, 40-year employees of General Motors or Chrysler.

We know it would have meant a huge number of lost jobs, thousands of lost jobs, just in the auto companies, let alone all of the suppliers, what are called tier 1 suppliers, tier 2 suppliers, those small companies, small- and medium-sized companies that are suppliers. They are machine shops, tool-and-die makers, stamping plants, all kinds of companies that make components that go into the auto industry, that go into the trucks and the cars. They would have gone out of business.

We knew all of this was about to happen. Because of the Recovery Act, and because this government decided, President Obama and the Democrats in the House and Senate--in spite of the naysayers, in spite of the people out there who said: Let the market work; if the auto industry collapses, it is the market speaking. Just let the market work. Let the free market work. If we had listened to them, listened to the naysayers, listened to the people who are the doom-and-gloom crowd, my State would have gone into a depression. We would have lost thousands of auto jobs. Senior citizens relying on those pensions and health care would have been, in many cases, abandoned. The dealerships, the component manufacturers, and the auto company employees themselves would have been out of work.

As I said, we did not listen to the conservative politicians and say: Let the market work. We did not listen to the naysayers. We did not listen to the doom-and-gloom crowd who said: It is not our problem. The Federal Government has no business.

Well, the fact is, the Federal Government invested in the auto industry. Instead of losing 700,000 jobs a month, as we were when President Obama took office 18, 19 months ago, we are now gaining jobs. We have gained jobs in this country in the private sector for 7 or 8 straight months. Not enough, not even close to what we want to do in New Mexico or Ohio or any other State, but clearly we have seen some good things happen.

What has happened in the auto industry is particularly interesting. At this GM plant in Lordstown, right where I was--and I have been there many times, where I was a couple of weeks ago with Governor Strickland--we have seen--there are 4,500 people working in that plant now. They just added 1,100 jobs to do the third shift of the Chevrolet Cruze. But what is particularly great about that, if you are the Senator from Ohio, is in Defiance, OH, western Ohio, near the Indiana border, is where they make the engines for the Chevy Cruze.

If you travel northeast of there to a Toledo suburb called Northwood, that is where they make the bumpers for the Chevy Cruze. If you go into the city of Toledo, that is where they make the transmission for the Chevy Cruze. Then you go east to Parma, OH, that is where they stamped most of the components for the Chevy Cruze.

Then you drive east to the Youngstown area, Mahoney Valley to Lordstown. They do some of the stamping, and that is where they do the assembly. So hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of new jobs were created--well, thousands--up and down the supply chain, from the most basic bolt, the most basic component in an engine or the most basic component in a car door or anywhere else in that car, to the ultimate assembly in Lordstown. It means thousands of jobs.

Again, if we had listened to the doom-and-gloom crowd and the naysayers, it never would have happened. We also need to learn from history. When government is in partnership with the private sector, with private businesses and communities, some pretty good things can happen. Just take this for a moment.

For 8 years, January 1993 to January 2001, President Clinton, during his time as President, we saw a 22 million private net increase, 22 million job increase.

We also saw wages go up in this country, and President Clinton left us with the largest budget surplus in American history: 22 million jobs, an increase in wages, largest budget surplus in American history.

In the next 8 years, January 20, 2001, to January 20 at noon, 2009, those 8 years of President Bush, 1 million jobs increased, 1 million, not even enough to take care of our sons and daughter who have graduated from high school and are entering the workforce, coming out of the Army, coming out of high school, coming out of college, not even enough to absorb the population growth.

Wages were actually flat or went down for the great majority of Americans during those 8 years, and President Bush left us with record budget deficits. So 22 million jobs, 1 million jobs, incomes went up, incomes flat and went down, biggest budget surplus in American history, record budget deficit under the Bush years.

So if you go back further, you hear the Republicans, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, talk about this philosophy: Cut taxes on the rich, and you cut taxes on corporations, you are going to have job growth. Well, nice try. It is not what happened.

After the Ronald Reagan tax cuts for the rich in 1981, the next 16 months we had declining employment in this country, 16 months in a row of lost jobs after this tax cut, which was going to make the economy take off. Fast-forward 1993, President Clinton. He had some tax increases on the wealthiest taxpayers. He also had some budget cuts, and he moved toward a balanced budget.

Employment took off--22 million jobs. President Bush, 2001, big tax cuts for the rich in 2001, big tax cuts for the rich in 2003, basically no real significant increase in jobs during those 8 years. Now, the mantra of the Republicans, those who are on the ballot this year and those who sit across the aisle from me, again, is, let's do more tax cuts because that increases jobs.

It does not. What increases jobs is investment in education, investment in health care, investment in infrastructure, reducing the deficits--all the things that Republicans pay lipservice to but in the end simply do not deliver on.

We have an opportunity next Monday. This coming Monday, we are going to bring a bill to the floor that is the other part of this: How do we create jobs? That is, we are going to begin to finally move to fix some of our tax laws, and then next will be some of our trade laws so that we quit losing so many jobs to China.

Mr. President, 30 percent of our GDP in 1980 was manufacturing, almost 30 percent. Now it is down to 11 percent of our gross domestic product. A big part of that is trade policy, which the Presiding Officer opposed when he was in the House of Representatives, PNTR with China and the Central American Free Trade Agreement, and before that, when I was in the House, my first year, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which we opposed.

Those trade agreements, coupled with tax law, has encouraged companies to move overseas. Those days have to be behind us. What we are going to do on Monday night is vote on legislation that will begin to turn the corner, will begin to take away those tax incentives for companies to go overseas and replace them with tax incentives for businesses that manufacture in Shelby, OH, and in Ravenna, OH, and Zanesville, Ohio, and all over this country.

At the same time, President Obama, the first President in years in either party, is beginning to enforce trade law. We know what that meant in Findlay, OH, when he enforced trade laws with the International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, on Chinese tires that had been dumped, sold illegally into this country.

When President Obama enforced those trade rules against the breaking of the law that the Chinese Government did, immediately we saw several hundred jobs created--100 of them in Findlay, OH--several hundred jobs created all over the country.

When the President did the same thing on something called oil country tubular steel--it is the steel, the seamless steel pipes, these tubes that are used for oil and gas drilling--we immediately saw a commitment, an investment, which will result in 400 jobs in Mahoning Valley in northeast Ohio, and a good many jobs in Lorain, OH, a city I lived in for a decade west of Cleveland on Lake Erie.

We were able to do that because, finally, it is the Democrats, working with President Obama, who are enforcing trade law and beginning to change tax policy so we see job creation.

I do not care where you live in this country. People are just sick and tired of not being able to find American-made products. This is made in China. This is made in India. This is made in Brazil. This is made in Honduras. This is made in Bangladesh. Nothing against those countries, but oftentimes, especially the Chinese, their government is gaming the system. They are not playing fair on trade. We need a whole different trade regimen. We need a whole different tax system so American companies are no longer going to China to find cheap labor, weak environmental rules, unenforced worker safety rules, and can produce and then send it back to America.

I think this is the first time since colonial days where the business community, where a lot of large manufacturing companies--and I make the distinction between large and small because small manufacturing companies do not do this but the large manufacturing companies. Ten years ago they came to lobby Congress to pass the permanent normal trade relations with China. Ten years ago this month the Senate, for all intents and purposes, sold out American manufacturing. They passed PNTR, it was called. It used to be called most favored nation status with China. They changed the name because it did not sound very good.

Congress passed that 10 years ago. What that has meant is our trade deficit with China has almost tripled in that period of time. What the business community has done, the large companies have done, is this: They lobbied to change the rules. Then they moved production from St. Clairsville, OH, and Portsmouth, OH, and Springfield, OH, to Shanghai and Wuhan and Beijing, and Huang Jo, China, to make those products. Then they sold them back to the United States.

I don't think since colonial times that large companies in one country have adopted that kind of business plan where you move production out of your country, make it somewhere else, add all that value to those products, and then sell them back into the home country where the corporation headquarters is located. It doesn't make sense for us. It means far too many lost jobs.

I will give an example. There is an industry in which many Ohio companies are involved, the paper industry. There is a specific kind of paper called a glossy paper used in magazines. China didn't have that industry. It is called coated paper. Twelve years ago China did not have a coated paper industry. They began it similar to the last decade when they built wind and solar, clean energy industries, and somehow started to lead the world, as we have unilaterally disarmed. Now they buy most of their pulp in Brazil. So they grow the trees, cut down the trees in Brazil. They ship the wood to Chinese paper mills. They manufacture the coated paper in China. They ship it back to the United States. They underprice American paper companies

which buy the wood sometimes within a few miles or a few hundred miles of where they are, which tells me, even though wages are less in China, even though they don't have much enforcement of environmental rules or worker safety rules, they are gaming the system with currency, with subsidies, free land, all the kinds of things the Chinese Communist Government does.

Until we enforce trade laws so we play fair and compete, we will continue to lose manufacturing jobs. That is why Monday night is an important first step as this Senate moves forward on dealing with the problem of outsourcing jobs. There are few things we can do in this body more important than beginning to rebuild manufacturing. We know how to make things. My State is the third largest manufacturing State in the country, behind only California and Texas, which are two and three times the size of Ohio in population. We know how to make big and little things. We have the largest ketchup manufacturing plant in the world in Freemont. We have the largest insulation company making fiberglass anywhere in the United States in Newark. We know how to make things in our State. We just need the opportunity, a level playing field, tax law and trade law that puts the United States of America on a level playing field. We know we can compete with anybody. We just need the opportunity.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, just yesterday, the Columbus Dispatch, the second largest paper in my State, reported that one single Cincinnati-based corporation gave more than $450,000 to Karl Rove's outfit. Lest we forget, Karl Rove was the very political person in the Bush administration who was sort of the mastermind of dirty tricks and of raising tons of special interest money and the mastermind on a lot of the sort of, shall we say, disinformation coming out of the White House in the Bush years during the lead-up to the Iraq war--that Karl Rove. Again, the Columbus Dispatch reported that one single Cincinnati-based corporation gave more than $450,000 to Karl Rove's outfit to support advertising for one single Ohio Senate candidate.

That was reported from a generally conservative newspaper. The Columbus Dispatch is no friend of Democrats. They are a pretty Republican organization, although the reporters are fairminded. So one corporation sent $450,000 to one single Senate candidate. That corporation can do that because of the Roberts Court decision--the Supreme Court decision, with its new ultraconservative Court, which is perhaps more conservative than any Court in the 21st or 20th centuries, in a case called Citizens United. It is an outright corruption of our democratic process. But with the Citizens United case, it is a reality.

The Supreme Court opened the floodgates, allowing multinational, large corporations to bankroll their favorite political candidates and build a Congress in their image. They don't have

to be American; they can be foreign corporations. It is not like the drug companies, oil companies, and insurance companies don't have enough power in Washington, DC. When they sneeze, too many people around here get a cold. When the drug companies, insurance companies, and the oil industry--these large corporations--want something, far too often they are successful in the Halls of Congress. That is the reason we have seen the obstruction in the last year and a half. That is why it is so easy for Leader McConnell to get 41 Republicans to oppose what we are trying to do in this body--because of the influence of these drug companies, insurance companies, the oil industry, and others-- these huge companies that outsource jobs.

The Supreme Court is made up of almost all conservative appointees--a majority of them--backed by these major moneyed corporate interests, and this Court has given even more power to these corporations. In some cases, they said they can be foreign-based corporations.

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court swept aside decades' worth of established jurisprudence to abruptly--and radically--change the rules of the game to remake, if you will, our democratic system. The Roberts Court couched their activism in arguments about the first amendment.

I am not a constitutional lawyer; in fact, I am not a lawyer at all. When I hear: Should General Motors or should Pfizer drug company or should any large corporation have the same free speech rights as individual Americans, I don't think so. The Founders never thought about corporations having all the same first amendment free speech rights as individuals, as the pages sitting here do or as Americans in Toledo, Akron, and everywhere do by nature of the fact they are American citizens. They have free speech rights.

The Roberts Court decision said we are going to give free speech rights to corporations in every way, which means the free speech of an individual American is washed away, in political terms, because of the huge influence that a small number of corporations can have because they have so much money to inject into the political system.

Citizens United, therefore, buries the voices of everyday Americans, as Fortune 500 companies straddle the globe and reap billions in profits, and they can take just pennies on the dollar and lavish huge dollars on American campaigns. If a multibillion-dollar company drops $1 million to help a candidate--as we are seeing with Rove's sort of sordid political operation--that is not very much money to that company. But that $1 million certainly can wash away and so much counteract a bunch of American citizens in Mansfield, Lima, Springfield, and Zanesville, OH, who are giving $20 each.

Average households are struggling to break even. How can you compare their ability to influence--ability to exercise their free speech--to that of a multimillion-dollar Fortune 500 company?

Look how that plays out. In 2009, corporations spent $3.3 billion lobbying Congress to influence legislation, exerting far more influence on our political process than they should.

We saw how special interests spent more than $1 million a day in an attempt to shape health care reform and Wall Street reform, and because of Citizens United they will be able to spend unlimited amounts of money to intimidate, retaliate against, and replace their foes in Congress.

If you speak up, as I am doing now at some risk--I am on the ballot in 2012. I know what this crowd is going to do because I do not always agree with BP's agenda or the drug companies' agenda. In fact, I usually do not. I also know these companies already have so much influence lobbying the Congress day after day, and now they are going to have greater influence in electing their allies to the House of Representatives and the Senate. They have turned this advantage into a corporate monopoly of political speech.

When campaigns overwhelmingly are run on television now, with millions of dollars spent--at least $10 million will be spent in Ohio in the Senate race, probably more than that in the Governor's race-- when there is that kind of money, it too often drowns out everyday Americans' free speech.

Most Americans today do not advocate for, nor would the Framers have envisioned a democratic system in which $10 million contributions from corporations drown out $20 donations that represent real people's real concerns. A lot of people give me $10, $20, or $50 for my campaign. They are not trying to buy influence. They do not buy influence with that. They contribute to me and the Senator from Illinois and others because they agree with what I do. They like the positions I take. They think I represent them reasonably well. But they are not going to influence the system. Contrast that with this more than $400,000 donation to one political candidate from one corporation. What does that suggest might happen down the road?

Our democracy was once--I hope still is--on the power of a single person walking into a voting booth and casting a vote. It is based on individual rights, not corporate profits. But the Citizens United case gave corporations the power to put corporate profits squarely ahead of personal rights. That is why the legislation we are working on, the DISCLOSE Act, is so important. I guess that is why Republicans en masse seem to be opposing the DISCLOSE Act.

The DISCLOSE Act fights back by giving individual Americans more power to understand, to cast sunlight into the shadows of corporate political spending. It grants citizens power of information-- information that breeds accountability and transparency. If a company engages in political activity, that company should be willing to identify itself--but not the way the Citizens United case is. That means the DISCLOSE Act would make CEOs do what political candidates do when they pay for political advertising.

When I ran for office, as I did in 2006 for the Senate, I looked into the camera and said: This ad was paid for by friends of Sherrod Brown, so people would know I am responsible for this ad. Why shouldn't a corporation that writes a check for $1 million to a political organization--why shouldn't that CEO be willing to and be told to and be forced to and be compelled to under law stand in front of the camera and say: This ad was paid for by XYZ Corporation. I take responsibility, and I am the CEO.

It helps the public follow the money behind the multimillion dollars that buy ads from shadowy groups. If BP were to give $1 million to a political candidate in Ohio or Pennsylvania and nobody really knows it is a BP ad that has gone into this group, then the voters do not have any way of judging very much from that ad. But if the CEO of BP had to walk out in front of that camera and say: I am the CEO of BP, and I paid for this ad, that is going to send a message to voters: Do I want to support this candidate BP is supporting? But, instead, BP can get behind the desk and hide from disclosure.

I have heard people in this body--the Republican leader most prominently--argue ad nauseam on campaign finance laws that we need full disclosure, we need the sunlight to shine. This is his opportunity to step up and argue for full disclosure and go down to that well and cast a vote: Yes, I agree with full disclosure.

They are not doing it now. Do you know why? So far, not one Republican has been willing to walk out here and make a CEO say: I am responsible for this ad. My corporation paid for this ad. They are not willing to because Republicans really know that come election time, when multinational corporations are willing to write million-dollar checks, they are going to be the beneficiary--not that my party by a long shot is perfect, but we know that Republican candidates are almost always supported by the biggest multinational, often foreign corporations in this country--the big oil companies, the big insurance companies, the big drug companies--that already have too much power here, but they are going to have more power here because they are spending all this money to elect conservative, Republican, pro- corporate, at-any-cost candidates. What that means is higher taxes for individuals as corporations pay less--less corporate responsibility for deregulation of Wall Street and the environment. Look at what happened to Wall Street in the last 3 years. Look at what happened to the environment with BP. The merry-go-round will continue.

The DISCLOSE Act also has a provision that says political decisions cannot be influenced by foreign-owned companies. We are putting a prohibition in this bill that a foreign-owned company cannot come to America and buy elections. I am incredulous that my Republican opponents--who always talk about nationalism, always challenge patriotism of people with whom they do not agree, always are talking about our national interests, always bashing immigrants--would not agree with us that foreign companies ought not be able to come in and buy American elections. I guess that is OK to them too, because our bill says foreign-owned corporations may not participate in American elections in this way.

To me, it is bad enough that a company based in the United States-- this is the case where a company that is based in the United States but owned by a European interest can still contribute. That is what the Citizens United case said. We are saying no to that. Think of a U.S.- based, Chinese-owned company spending millions to influence a trade or manufacturing bill.

One of the things I fought for--and I know the Presiding Officer agrees with this, and it has been supported--is made-in-America provisions. We have seen in downstate Illinois, in suburban Chicago, in Dayton and Springfield, OH, Cleveland and Toledo, a significant erosion of our manufacturing base. One of the reasons for that is that companies have moved offshore because of bad trade agreements and bad tax law that we are trying to fix even though it has been blocked by the other side. We also know most Americans would love to buy clothes made in the United States, would like to buy products. They go to stores and cannot find products made in the USA. Tell me that a foreign-owned corporation that spends political money, comes in and gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to a conservative political candidate, tell me that corporation is not going to lobby that Member of Congress against some of our made-in-America laws we have tried to enact. You can bet those conservative politicians who love to trumpet their patriotism and accuse others who disagree of not being so patriotic will find a way to oppose strengthening made-in-America rules.

If anything should bear the label ``Made in America,'' it should be our elections. I am amazed that Republicans in this body do not agree with that.

It used to be that the disclosure of campaign expenditures was bipartisan, Republicans and Democrats. It is bipartisan in the public; it is just not bipartisan here. We should not want to see our democratic system become the puppet of corporate America or any special interest. Transparency matters. People ought to know from where these dollars come. Disclosure matters. Companies should have to disclose and take responsibility for those ads and those contributions. By enabling Americans to see behind the curtain, the DISCLOSE Act ensures Americans will not be left in the dark.

The bill restores some of the integrity and the transparency that the Citizens United decision stripped from our political process. Let's not forsake this opportunity. I know it will not affect the tens of millions of dollars Karl Rove and his friends in the Bush administration are spending in campaigns this year, but if we do this bill right, it can affect elections in the future in a positive way so that elections, one, will be made in America; and second, for people who give money, there will be transparency and disclosure so the public knows which corporations are putting how much money into whose campaigns, and it will mean ultimately that corporations take responsibility for the decisions they make and the money they spend in the American political system. It is what the rest of us have to do. CEOs should have to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I wish to mention something else after talking about the, perhaps, Chinese influence on American elections and other countries' influence on American elections and how Republicans do not seem to want to stand up for the American people's first amendment rights and national interests. I wish to talk about something that is more bipartisan, in a sense, and is every bit more disturbing; that is, 10 years ago this month, the Senate sold out American manufacturing. Ten years ago this month, by a vote of 83 to 15, the Senate passed a bill establishing permanent normal trade relations with the People's Republic of China. I remember. I was in the House of Representatives, and I opposed this measure. We were joined by most of the Democrats and a number of Republicans, but we were unable to defeat it. It was a fairly close vote.

The proponents of China PNTR came to our office, the people who wanted to give these extra benefits to China. It was initially called most-favored-nation status for China. The supporters thought that did not sound very good, even though we had used that term for years, and called it permanent normal trade relations with China. They put another name on it; they put lipstick on that pig. What the supporters said to us--the CEOs who came to Congress and one at a time talked to us--was that they could not wait to pass PNTR because they would then have access to 1 billion Chinese consumers, so those consumers could purchase American-made products. They wanted access to 1 billion Chinese consumers. It sounded pretty good. As you know, it was not quite the story because as soon as PNTR passed, as soon as they changed the rule, the story became not 1 billion Chinese consumers about whom they were excited, it was 1 billion Chinese workers about whom they were excited. You could see American companies crossing the ocean-- shutting down a plant in Dayton, OH, and moving to China; shutting down a plant in Youngstown, OH, and moving to Shanghai; shutting down a plant in Toledo, OH, and moving to Wuhan; shutting down a plant in Lima, OH, and moving to Beijing or Quang Chau.

I think it is the first time since colonial days--maybe ever--the first time when a business plan--get this--when a company's business plan is this: The first thing you do is lobby Congress to change the rules. The second thing you do is start to shut down plants in your home country with your home country's workers, where your entire company was established and grew. You have shut down production in your country. You move several thousand miles away, set up production, understanding that the workers work more cheaply, the workers work for less pay, the country does not have strong environmental rules and has very few protections for workers.

They make the product, and then they sell the product back to the home country. This business model, after getting the law changed-- PNTR--10 years ago this month, was to move overseas, make the products there, then sell them back to the original home country. That is bad for the environment, first of all. It is bad for our workers and bad for our communities when a plant shuts down.

Look what has happened. We have seen since PNTR passed a 170-percent trade deficit increase in the last 10 years. China continues to undermine free market competition, and it leaves American workers and manufacturers in severe disadvantage. Instead of helping U.S. companies export more products to China, our trade policies have permitted China to manipulate its currency, provide illegal subsidies to Chinese exporters, and artificially price Chinese goods, so U.S. manufacturers have to compete against a flood of cheap imports.

Do you know what happens? When I see people supporting this--people talking about small businesses--here is how wrong they are. When a large company leaves Akron or Canton, OH, and pulls up stakes and moves to Mexico or China--a large assembly company, an auto plant, for example--you know what happens to all the small companies and small manufacturers. They don't have the wherewithal or the sophistication to move to China or Mexico so they lose 30 percent of their business--a little tool and die shop in

Akron, a little machine shop in Hamilton, OH, whatever--because they have lost their major customer. Look what happens to them and to their workers. So big companies move overseas and all the component manufacturers are out of luck, all because of this trade policy and this tax policy which makes it more attractive for a company and a CEO--well, the CEO doesn't move, he or she still lives here--to move their company to China and then sell back into the United States.

Second, our Nation's trade policy--this PNTR bill that passed 10 years ago--sold out American manufacturers and undermined our Nation's ability to lead the world in clean energy. China, which barely had a wind turbine or solar manufacturing presence at all a decade ago, by the end of this year may be making, or close to making, half of all wind turbines and solar panels in the world--in 10 years. And they are not making them--most of them--to sell in China but to export, much of which comes back to the United States. More than 70 percent of the world's clean energy components are manufactured outside the United States.

We know how to make things in my State. Ohio is the third biggest manufacturing State. We know how to make things. We invented and developed most of the wind and solar panel technology. In fact, 30 miles from my house is a taxpayer-funded NASA facility that developed the technology we use in wind turbines, most of which is built in China and Spain and other places around the world.

Supporters of this China trade policy will make the argument that everything is about exports. I agree, we have to boost our exports, but we have a $226 billion trade deficit per year. That is about $600 million a day. That means $600 million every single day, 7 days a week. It means we buy $600 million more from China than we sell to China. So how do you argue this trade policy is working for us? It means, in essence, that $600 million disappears from our shores every day going to China, and that is not going to work long term for our country when you build up those types of trade deficits.

We can do a couple of things about this. First of all, we have to do much better at enforcing trade laws and to revive the Super 301 mechanism that lapsed under the Bush administration that requires the administration to establish enforcement priorities for the most pressing trade barriers, including currency manipulation, restrictive procurement policies, and intellectual property theft. It would ensure that our government helps open foreign markets to U.S. exporters.

I am a member of the President's U.S. Export Council. There are about 10 House and Senate Members on this council--both parties, both Houses--and a number of American CEOs are on the council as well. We all want to export more. But as we try to export more, sell more U.S. products abroad, we have to enforce U.S. trade laws so those companies aren't selling things into our country illegally.

President Obama has done that, to some degree. He has done more on that than any previous President. He has not done close to enough. He has stepped forward on oil country tubular steel goods, which is the steel pipes that are used for gas and oil drilling. The Chinese were cheating on that. The President made the right trade decision on that, the right enforcement decision. We saw hundreds of new jobs in Mahoning Valley, in northeast Ohio. The President made a similar decision on Chinese tires that were sold in this country illegally. After the President made that decision, 100 people were hired at the Findlay Cooper tire plant in Findlay, OH, in northwest Ohio, and in other places around the State.

I would close with this. We hear a lot of talk from both parties about Made in America. What that means is standing up for American workers and manufacturers who are too often undercut by imports made in countries that violate the law. We are just asking to have the law enforced. So my challenge to my colleagues--and to the President--is to ensure American manufacturing grows rather than contracts during the next decade of the 21st century.

Thirty years ago, almost a third of our gross domestic product was manufacturing. Today, it is only 11 percent. Thirty years ago, 11 percent of our GDP was financial services. Today, that is 25 percent. So as not to overwhelm people with numbers, we have seen basically a flipping of our national priorities. Think back to 30 years ago: Almost a third of our GDP was manufacturing and only 11 percent financial services. That has flipped. Look where it has gotten us. It has gotten us the financial crisis that almost brought our economy down, if we hadn't stepped in on banking and autos to stabilize the economy. It has also robbed many Americans of a chance to join the middle class, because manufacturing has always been the ticket in this country for working-class men and women to get a chance to work in manufacturing, to buy a decent home in a decent neighborhood, to buy a car and send their kids to school so their kids would have a better life. That is the goal of all of us.

I close by saying that I hope we remember the China PNTR. I would hope that maybe we would even invoke some buyer's remorse; that some of my colleagues would come to the Senate floor and want to discuss this and maybe learn from the mistakes of the last 10 years. Maybe we could achieve a truly normal relationship with China. I want a good strong trade relationship with China. I want us to sell products to China. I think we should buy products from China. But I want to do it on a level playing field, with rules that work for the workers in both countries, not just the big corporations that move companies to China, and not just for the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese military, which have benefitted greatly from our trade policy. It is time to learn from the last 10 years and to move forward in a very different way.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

I have been listening with fascination to the Senator's speech because there is nobody who comes to the floor and better explains jobs, trade, trade policy, and tax policy and what it does to our communities and our workers.

The Senator mentioned two very well known American companies, and both happen to be from my State--Huffy bicycles and Etch A Sketch, which is a company called Ohio Art in Bryan, OH. That is exactly what happened. Walmart came to Ohio Art and said: We want to sell Etch A Sketch for less money than we are selling it for now. So they had no choice.

But let me ask the Senator, it seems to me that there has not been anytime in recent history where U.S. companies have put their business plans together in this way: Instead of manufacturing something, cutting costs, and treating their workers decently and contributing to the community--which American companies have done for generations and is why we have such a strong middle class--it seems that the business plan for so many large American companies is to move their production offshore, obviously getting less expensive labor, avoiding environmental and worker safety rules, and then selling the product-- well, first lobbying Congress to change the rules, as they did with PNTR for China, but moving their

production out of the country, offshore, producing it, and then selling it back into the home country.

That is a curious business plan that many American companies follow. I hear those companies say to me: Well, we have no choice but to go offshore for the cheapest production because our competitors are doing that, even though they lobbied Congress to help change the rules. I mean, it is a bit cynical but a curious business plan that you leave behind the community that built you up and you move somewhere else and then you sell the products back to the country in which you were founded.

Will the Senator yield once again?

I thank the Senator.

I would add that a major manufacturer that leaves from Minneapolis or leaves from Cleveland or from North Dakota is a company that has the resources to do that, and that company has a multitude of component manufacturers in its supply chain and that large company that leaves may be its biggest customer. Perhaps it is a big assembly plant that leaves to go to China. The component manufacturer that sells to that auto assembly plant has all of a sudden lost its biggest customer. It is not big enough to move to China, so it loses 30 percent of its customer base.

So it is not just the company that moves and what that does to American workers and companies and communities, it is also those multitude of component manufacturers. In the auto industry, for instance, there are way more people working in the supply chain than there are in the actual assembly plant. So in the wake of a major company moving overseas, we see devastation in the entire supply chain of component manufacturing. I am sure you saw that with Huffy bicycle. There is the manufacturer that made the steel, that stamped the fenders, that made the tires and the spokes that were taken to Huffy--I think to Celina, OH, in those days--to assemble. So all of them lose.

In smaller communities, as the Senator knows, a manufacturing plant oftentimes has a husband and wife both working at the same plant, making $12 to $15 an hour. Their whole lives are upended because all of a sudden they have lost both jobs in their family.

Thirty years ago, 30 percent of our GDP was in manufacturing and only 11 percent was in financial services. That number has flipped now, and look where it got us. Only 11 percent of our country's GDP is now as a result of making things. We know how to make things in this country, and we are losing that ability. Without a real manufacturing policy-- more than a strategy but a policy--like every other country has, we are going to see a decline in the middle-class long term.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the SEC Inspector General's Report on the `Investigation of the SEC's Response to Concerns Regarding Robert Allen Stanford's Alleged Ponzi Scheme.' ''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Tax and Fiscal Policy: Effects on the Military and Veterans Community.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 11 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 3 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nine Years After 9/11: Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized

to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Electronic Communications Privacy Act: Promoting Security and Protecting Privacy in the Digital Age.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 2 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Investigating and Prosecuting Financial Fraud after the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Rules and Administration be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010. The Committee will meet in room 345 in the Cannon House Office Building beginning at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 22, 2010, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, yesterday on the floor of the Senate I told the story of something that happened in Lordstown, OH, a community not too far from Youngstown, in the Mahoning Valley in northeast Ohio 1 week ago today. This story was a celebration of the first car coming off the line in the Lordstown Chevrolet-GM plant, the car the Chevy Cruz. It is a high mileage car, I believe the highest mileage car GM ever produced. It is a relatively inexpensive car. They expect it to be a huge seller all over the United States. It is a good economy car with a lot to it that recommends itself.

I am not here to endorse the car or even endorse the company. I am here to say that this celebration was a direct result of what the Presiding Officer and others in this body and the President of the United States did a year and a half ago.

Turn the clock back to the beginning of the Presiding Officer's service in the Senate in early 2009. President Obama had just taken office. We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. The banking industry almost collapsed. President Bush had begun the bailout of the banks to make sure they did not collapse. President Obama continued working on this issue.

We know where the auto industry was at the same time. Sales were down 40 percent in the auto industry, 1 million jobs were at risk of being lost, on top of the 8 million jobs that had already been lost by the time President Obama raised his right hand to be sworn in on January 20, 2009.

It was not just the Big Three--Chrysler, Ford, and GM--that were in trouble, two of which declared bankruptcy. It was also the tier 1 suppliers, those large companies that made products that go directly into the assembly of a car. It was also all the other component manufacturers--tier 2, tier 3 companies--that make everything from door handles to tires to bolts to hold the car together to windshields to side

panels, the stamping plants, the component plants, the engine plants, and ultimately the automobile itself.

I take special pride in the Chevy Cruz because it is such an Ohio car. The engine is made in Defiance, OH. The transmission is made in Toledo, OH. The bumpers are made in Northwood, OH. Most of the metal is stamped in Parma, OH. Some of the rest of the metal is stamped in Lordstown, and the assembly is done in Lordstown. The Cruz is really an Ohio car.

The good news is that 1,100 jobs were added for a third shift on the Cruz. That is the Lordstown plant alone. That is just that plant. That is not counting all the job increases for the component manufacturers.

Again, looking back a year and a half when there was so much trauma in this country, when we were losing 800,000 jobs a month--we had already lost 8 million jobs the last year of President Bush's term. The auto industry was about to go belly up. Conservative politicians, the naysayers, the doom-and-gloom crowd in this body and across the way and others were saying: Let the market work. If the auto industry fails, that is the market's decision. If the dealers go out of business-- dealers not just in Ohio but in Colorado and everywhere else--that is the market. If the suppliers go out of business, that is the market speaking. If the communities where these companies are lose jobs and lose revenue and they lay off teachers, firefighters, police officers, and mental health counselors, that is the free market working. If the auto dealer in Lima, OH, goes out of business, that means the Little League that car dealer used to sponsor will not have new uniforms. That is the market working.

In spite of the naysayers, in spite of the conservative politicians in this country and in this body who said, Wash our hands, we didn't cause it, we are not going to do anything about it, we did not do that. We did not turn our back on that. Mr. President, 400,000 Ohio jobs are directly or indirectly dependent on the auto industry. Tens and hundreds of thousands of jobs in every State of this country depend on the auto industry, not to mention the retirees, many of whom get pensions because of their 25, 30, 40, sometimes 45, years of work in this industry.

We did not turn our backs. We invested in the auto industry. That is why we had that celebration last Tuesday in Lordstown, OH, because the naysayers lost, the doom-and-gloom crowd was cast aside, and those of us who thought we should invest in the auto industry were successful. We were successful in that 1,100 people in Lordstown are back at work and hundreds of thousands of others did not lose their jobs because of that. And we are all in a much better position because of that.

We need to learn from our history. If we had turned our back on this industry, we would have been in a depression. Almost any economist thinks that. Auto and housing are, I believe, the two biggest industries in our country.

I want to go back a little further to the whole idea of letting the market work and the government never being involved. Let me take--and do it very fairly--January 20, 1993, to January 20, 2001, the 8 years of Bill Clinton's Presidency, then January 20, 2001, to January 20, 2009, the 8 years of George Bush's Presidency. I am not shading this. I am just taking these 8 years.

During the 8 years of President Clinton's Presidency, we increased taxes on the wealthy, balanced the budget, and had smart--not too much regulation--had smart regulation. During the 8 years of President Clinton, a net 22 million jobs were created in this country, more than a 22 million net increase of jobs during Bill Clinton's 8 years. During George Bush's 8 years, there was a net increase of 1.1 million: 22 million during President Clinton's 8 years; 1.1 million during President Bush's 8 years.

During President Clinton's 8 years, incomes went up for the average person in this country. During President Bush's 8 years, income for the average person went down.

At the end of President Clinton's 8 years--in other words, January 20, 2001--when he left the White House, we had the largest budget surplus in American history. When George Bush left the White House on January 20, 2009, we had the largest budget deficit in this Nation's history.

Yet too many people in this body think that we should go back to the years of deregulation of Wall Street, cutting taxes on the rich, and passing trade agreements that send jobs to China, Mexico, and all over the world.

I will take you back further. If you do not quite believe that-- although it is provably true--go back to the Reagan tax cuts. Ronald Reagan staked his whole reputation on them. When he was campaigning, he said: We are going to cut taxes. In 1981, the Reagan administration pushed through a tax cut. Congress voted for it. It was a major tax cut, overwhelmingly for corporations and the wealthiest wage earners of the country.

For the next 16 months, we lost jobs in this country. For the next 16 months, we had a net decrease in employment--for 16 months. Only when President Reagan signed a tax increase to balance the budget did we begin to have job growth.

The same thing happened with President Obama. President Obama came in and passed the stimulus package. We were losing a lot of jobs. We kept losing jobs because that is what was happening to the economy.

When we passed the Recovery Act, we began to see the economy get better. It has not gotten better quickly enough. We have gotten no help from the other side of the aisle, which opposed everything because they wanted to go back to the Bush ideas and tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of Wall Street, and passing trade agreements that outsource jobs.

We are not going to do that with President Obama. We are not going to do that with the Democrats in the majority in the House and the Senate. We are not going back to tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of Wall Street, and trade agreements that send jobs overseas.

Instead, we are beginning the recovery. For the last several months, we have seen a net increase every month in private sector job creation. That increased not as fast as we wanted. Too many 22-year-olds come home from the Army and college and cannot get a job. I know that. There are too many people laid off who cannot get a job. There are too many people working but not working as many hours, not working 40 hours, even though they want to.

We know this economy is not where it should be. If the voters this year elect people who subscribe to the George Bush philosophy of tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of Wall Street and more trade agreements that outsource jobs to China and Mexico, we are making a terrible mistake. We do not want to look back. We want to look forward.

We can learn from history, and the best way to learn from history is to see who has been President, what their governing philosophy has been and what works. Twenty-two million jobs during the Clinton years and one million jobs during the Bush years. When President Bush cut taxes-- at the beginning of his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts--you know what happened? Wealthy Americans saved their money. They didn't invest it or spend it on job creation; they saved it. Good for them. But why would we pass a tax cut instead of doing it right, the way we have done it, and put people to work on bridge projects and water and sewer projects and helping small businesses?

We are passing legislation this week that Senator Landrieu has pushed so hard on. My colleague, Senator Voinovich, is one of only two Republicans to support it, even though the Chamber of Commerce is a strong supporter of it. It will make a difference in creating jobs because we know most jobs--two out of three--are created by small business.

Facts are facts, Mr. President. We can learn from history. We shouldn't turn back the clock and do things the way we did in the first part of this decade.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 597, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 603, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 607 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 620, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, September 15; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and that following any leader remarks there be a period of morning business for 1 hour, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half; that following morning business, the Senate resume consideration of H.R. 5297, the small business jobs bill, postcloture, and that time during any period of morning business, recess or adjournment count postcloture; and, finally, I ask the Senate recess from 2:45 until 3:30 p.m. tomorrow.