What about Jobs?
Floor Speech
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Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentleman from California for bringing this to our attention. I've been thinking a lot about the role of research and development to the 21st century and to 21st-century job creation. In fact, I've introduced along with you and a number of our colleagues, my colleague from Maryland, Republican Roscoe Bartlett, H.R. 689 which is the 21st Century Reinvestment Act. The goal is to invest in research and development, expand our tax credit for research and development, make it permanent, and then link it to manufacturing.
Here has been my experience. In the Fourth Congressional District, we are home to some of the most fantastic research innovation that's happening anywhere in the country. That's true all across the country, but these sorts of robust and innovative firms, many of them are small firms. They can't afford to just front-load R&D to create manufacturing jobs, but they need the government to have a tax policy that actually encourages that. So I am all in favor, actually, of a tax policy that encourages the positive things that we want, research and development, job creation, manufacturing.
Instead, what did we get out of Congress? We got a tax bill that rewards the top 2 percent with tax breaks that they're never going to put back into the economy. We've had 10 weeks of a Republican revolution here in the House of Representatives that has created zero jobs, and, in fact, a continuing resolution out of this House of Representatives, this Republican-led House of Representatives, that would destroy 700,000 jobs. It is as if we're saying, No, we don't really like the 21st century. We want to go back to the 19th and the 20th century. That is not how you rebuild a manufacturing base in this country.
I have actually been struck traveling throughout my congressional district at small firms like Wabtech up in Gaithersburg, Maryland, which is doing some really innovative R&D, research and development, to develop signaling systems that will help us with high-speed rail. Guess what: they've just had to lay off workers because we are not making the right kinds of investments into research and development and technology that's about jobs for the 21st century.
The President got it right. He said we have to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build. The way that we do that, of course, is to invest in our educators; invest in our young people. We're doing exactly the opposite. The Republican majority is doing the exact opposite here in this Congress. Again, 10 weeks of work and not a single job.
In fact, Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas has just said: you know what, we're not going to create a jobs bill at all. We're not interested in jobs. All we're interested in is cutting government spending.
Well, let's look at what they're cutting, some of the most innovative research that's going on in this country. NOAA, that looks at our weather service, that makes sure that our farmers understand what's happening with our climate and our weather so that they can engage in production of products throughout this country.
What else are we doing? They say the National Institutes of Health doesn't need $2.5 billion to continue innovative research in cancer and other things, things that actually play out in terms of the marketplace, creating private sector jobs in a new economy.
I am really struck by the language of small business, the language of innovation, the language of job creation but not a single job. Zero jobs. Ten weeks of a Republican revolution, zero jobs; 700,000 jobs lost.
I would urge my colleagues that if they really want to be about the 21st century, then they should join us in expanding the research and development tax credit so those innovative firms can invest in all the technologies of the future, so that we can produce the Ph.D.s who are needed to conquer the 21st century and then link that to manufacturing so that the small firms in my district and all across the country can take advantage of a research and development tax credit because they are making things, where, making it in America.
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Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank you, Mr. Garamendi, because I am excited about the prospect of manufacturing again in America. In my home State of Maryland, about 40 percent of our economic base was manufacturing. Today, that's under 10 percent. And I think that that's a sign of what's happened all across this country. But it doesn't have to remain that way.
Today, we heard the Prime Minister of Australia express a belief in America that I want America to express in herself in terms of us leading the world in technology development and manufacturing for the 21st century. We need to return to that. There is still a lot of innovation that's going on.
But let me tell you what's happened over the last couple of decades. The United States used to have the number one research and development tax credit in the world. Today, we're number 17. From number one to number 17. And what that means, when you begin to lose ahold of your innovation and other people are doing that innovation, pretty soon the production lines move to where the innovation is taking place. So it's no accident that manufacturing is leaving to where some of that innovation is taking place in other countries. I want to make sure that we're doing it, that we are making it, that we are manufacturing it right here in the United States.
Let's take solar panels as an example. All of the great solar technology that we have developed right here in the United States. Where do we make solar panels? Every place else, particularly in China. Well, we should be making those in the United States, production lines and manufacturing lines that are actually close to where the research and development is taking place. We can go industry by industry, sector by sector and make the argument for making it in America. We are great innovators.
But we don't want to be at number 17 when it comes to incentivizing through our tax policy good things, incentivizing innovation and manufacturing here in the United States, creating local jobs. I mean, the couple of firms that I talked about, they have 200 employees. And, you know, some of those employees graduated high school and they're working on that production line, high-paid jobs working on that production line. They're working alongside engineers who have Ph.D.s, and there are researchers with their Ph.D.s all along that production line, a couple of hundred employees. Well, we should be doubling and tripling that all across communities across this country so that we're not at 10 percent of manufacturing capacity in my State, but we're at 40 and 50 percent, because then people are working, they've got good job jobs, they've got great education, and we are making it in America.
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Ms. EDWARDS. Well, let me just go, because I am having a conversation this afternoon with the president of the University of Maryland. I was out at the University of Maryland campus over the past weekend. Like campuses all across this country that are engaged in some of the top-notch research that's going on in the country, I was with 300 young people from kindergarten to 12th grade over at the University of Maryland, all interested in the STEM fields, interested in science, technology, engineering, and math, interested in making a career in those fields that are about the 21st century.
Sadly, here we are in the United States Congress completely disconnected to communities, completely disconnected to young people and their aspirations for the future, cutting, slashing, burning, cutting programs that are about educating our young people to take advantage of the 21st century.
And so it just seems that there is a complete disconnect between what the majority is doing and how that will play out for our future. And so I had to say to these young people, you know, stay with it. Stick with those STEM fields, with the science and the technology and the engineering and math. Go on to that engineering school, go on into the biosciences that we see coming out of the University of Maryland, go on into the space program because we are investing in technologies not just that are going to open up our universe, but that actually have real application here on Earth.
We have to continue to support our young people to do that. But it really does fly in the face of what's actually being done by this Republican majority to cut away at education for the future, to say we don't really want to manufacture things here in the United States and say that we don't really care whether we make that research and development tax credit permanent so that small firms can innovate and create and hire.
But we know that America cares about those things. That's why it's important for us to have this conversation with the American people about what it's going to take, really, to jump-start the economy and the things that are happening in this Congress that are going to put a kibosh on that.
Cutting 700,000 jobs, zero jobs created in 10 weeks of this Congress, and not investing in our future, not investing in our manufacturing.
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Ms. EDWARDS. Just yesterday, educators from my congressional district were here on Capitol Hill. They were educators from Bowie State University, an Historically Black College that is now poised to get research grants going to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, cut by the Republican majority in the continuing resolution.
There were representatives here from the University of Maryland. I've spoken again about the wonderful work that they are doing in cyber security, in aerospace research over at that university campus, cut in this continuing resolution.
There were educators from our community colleges that are training both young people and people who want new and real skills for this new economy, cut in this continuing resolution.
And you spoke about the Pell Grants. What these universities and community colleges share in common in higher education is that they know that in order to bring up the most diverse workforce, a trained and skilled workforce, we also need students who come from vulnerable families, whose families can't afford to send them to school. And what have we done? We've cut out of that continuing resolution, the Republican majority has cut $845, $870 from Pell Grants. And you know what that means? That's books for a semester, not even two semesters but, you know, probably a semester.
And so I have to wonder what the majority is thinking about the future. They may be thinking about today, maybe--and we can argue about that--but they surely are not thinking about the future by cutting education, by not investing in manufacturing, by not investing in research, by not investing in all of the things that will make us competitive for the 21st century.
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