Bring Jobs Home Act - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, in a few minutes we are going to have the opportunity to make it clear to the American people that we get it, that we understand, that we need to be bringing jobs home to America, that it is not acceptable we have lost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs. In fact, as we see more companies coming back to the United States, we need to reward them. We need to say: We are open for business. Come on back. And we are going to make sure we have a Tax Code that supports those decisions.

The Bring Jobs Home Act, which Senator Walsh is leading--and I want to commend him. I know he has talked to me about how important it is to his State of Montana. It certainly is to my State of Michigan as well. We have this opportunity, through Senator Walsh's Bring Jobs Home Act, to show that we are going to begin the process of making our tax system work for American workers, American businesses, and communities.

So we have a vote in a few minutes on whether to proceed to this bill. It is not the final vote. The question is, is this an important enough topic that we would actually proceed to the bill? That is the question. Because there has been objection to just proceeding, as we know, we have to get 60 votes, a supermajority, to proceed. I would hope this is something we would see 100 people--everybody in the U.S. Senate--agree that, yes, we should be debating this issue of how we bring jobs home to America. I cannot imagine a more critical issue for everyone whom we represent.

This bill is very simple. First of all, if you are packing up and leaving this country, you should not be able to write off the cost. The worker who helps pack the equipment that is going to be going overseas should not be paying the bill through the Tax Code. The community that sees the factory empty once the business leaves should not be paying through the Tax Code for the costs of the move. So this bill says no more writeoffs if you are leaving the country.

On the other hand, if you want to bring jobs home, you can write off those costs that our Tax Code will allow you to take as a business expense and--because we think it is so important--we will add another 20-percent tax credit on top of it.

So, very simply, if you want to come home, we are all in. We want to support you doing that. We congratulate those businesses that are making the right business decision right now--for a lot of good reasons: low energy costs, a high-skilled workforce. There are a lot of reasons why folks are coming home. But if you want to leave, you are on your own. That is what the bill is all about. I hope everyone will vote to proceed to the Bring Jobs Home Act.

I thank the Chair.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source