Economic Recovery Must Begin With Manufacturing Jobs, Dorgan Says

Press Release

U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said Tuesday that although the U.S. economy avoided a complete collapse during the last two years, the recovery is going to be long and slow unless we decide as a nation we are going to rebuild our manufacturing sector and compete with manufacturing jobs in the rest of the world.

The Senator said we need economic conditions that make it profitable to manufacture in this country again, and first the most important step is to change the law and eliminate the tax breaks that are given to companies that ship their U.S. jobs overseas.

Dorgan said he has offered that amendment four times in the U.S. Senate, falling short of the necessary 50 votes on each occasion.

"It is flat out ignorant of our own economic interests for us to be subsidizing the movement of U.S. jobs overseas," Dorgan said. "We are not going to have a real economic recovery unless we rebuild our manufacturing capability and put people to work producing products with "Made in America' labels once again."

The provision in tax law Dorgan is trying to repeal allows a company to defer paying income taxes to the U.S. on profits they earn for manufacturing overseas unless they repatriate income to the U.S.

"The means that if you close your manufacturing plant in the U.S., fire your workers, and move the operation, you actually pay less taxes on your income than if you had stayed here, kept the jobs here, and manufactured the product here," Dorgan said. "If we are going to be having an expanding economy that puts people back to work again we have to abolish these incentives that now exist to move American jobs overseas."

Senator Dorgan said he is preparing to offer an amendment in the remaining weeks of this legislative session to give domestic manufacturers an even break with those who have chosen to move their U.S. jobs overseas.

On other issues, Dorgan said that he and his colleague Senator John McCain, his cosponsor, are still expecting to force another vote on allowing the importation of FDA-approved prescription drugs that are sold for a fraction of the price in other countries. Dorgan said that allowing the re-importation of identical, less expensive FDA-approved drugs from other countries, whose chain of custody is identical to ours, would save $100 billion in ten years.

"American consumers shouldn't be paying the highest prices in the world for brand name prescription drugs," Dorgan said. "They deserve the opportunity to buy those identical drugs at prices that the rest of people around the world pay for them."

Dorgan also said that he is going to continue to work with Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa on legislation just introduced to reduce the federal budget deficit by capping farm program payments at $250,000.

"We've got some of the biggest corporate agri-factories in the country sucking millions of dollars out of the farm program, and that is not what the farm program is supposed to accomplish," Dorgan said. "We have a farm program to help family farmers through tough times. It's not supposed to be buttering the bread of the biggest corporate agri-factories."

Dorgan was also critical of the "direct payments" in current farm programs saying, "When farmers have bumper crops and strong commodity prices, to have the government send additional money in the form of direct payments that are disconnected to prices and production makes no sense at all."

"It is unfair to the rest of the American tax payers. The funding for the farm program ought to be designed to provide the best safety net we can provide for family farmers to get through difficult times," he said. "Unfortunately, part of the farm program has become a set of golden arches for the biggest corporate farms in the country, and I still hope we can change that."

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