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Senator Christopher J. 'Chris' Dodd
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Current Office: U.S. Senate
Seniority: Senior Seat
First Elected: 11/04/1980
Last Elected: 11/02/2004
Next Election: 2010
Party: Democratic
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BiographicalVoting RecordIssue Positions
(Political Courage Test)Interest Group RatingsPosition PapersSpeeches and Public StatementsAdditional Biographical InformationCampaign Finances
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Title: Outscoring of American Jobs
Date: 03/03/2004
Location: Washington, DC
Speech
OUTSOURCING OF AMERICAN JOBS
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I may not use all of my 20 minutes. I have been talking at some length this afternoon, although it is my custom to do so. I might point out, for those who are interested, this is not a filibuster. I am prepared to vote on this amendment right now. I was prepared to vote on it an hour and a half ago, but there are those who want to analyze what I am proposing.
I suppose it is more than analysis that is occurring. They are trying to figure out how to defeat it, and I regret that because I do not think it is complicated. I think it is straightforward. I think it makes sense.
I would not be offering this if this was not a problem sweeping across the country. Concerns are being expressed everywhere by Americans of varying incomes and positions. I know in my own State I have had meetings with people I could not put in the same town or county together a year ago who are coming to us now and saying, would you please do something here. I am talking about my chambers of commerce.
I had a meeting last week at a Teamsters Local that included the chambers of commerce, the Manufacturers Association, the International Association of Machinists and Teamsters. I do not need to remind the Chair what a unique circumstance that is when a crowd like that gets together-by the way, all asking me to do the same thing.
They were not just asking me but asking us what we were going to do, because they have watched the alarming decline of manufacturing jobs in the country, and it seems to be accelerating at a dramatic pace.
Also the problem they foresee, and I agree with them on this outsourcing of jobs, which is very appealing, and I understand it from a corporate standpoint, when one sees their competitors, neighbors, and businesses are outsourcing and cutting their budgets by huge amounts because they can hire someone for $7 a day or $2 an hour, as opposed to paying them $40,000, $50,000 or $60,000 a year, then the lure is remarkable.
As we know, in fact, the Indian government is providing tremendous incentives to lure call centers, providing corporations with tax exemptions and building western-style technology parks fitted with telecom infrastructures.
What are we doing? Are we doing anything to try and compete with that or are we just saying that is the way the world is and we better get used to it because that is what is going to happen for the foreseeable future, and maybe something will come along that will all of a sudden fill this vacuum, that will restore these manufacturing jobs or information technology and the like?
I can only hope that would be the case because in the absence of doing anything else, we are going to find a continuing decline in this area.
I worry about this from the standpoint of national security. In my State, I have over 5,000 small manufacturers. I have major corporations as well. I probably have more large Fortune 500 corporations in my State than any other State in the country on a per-capita basis, given the size of my State. My State is the home of major corporations. Many of them are major defense contractors, and those 5,000 small manufacturers in many cases are suppliers of very sophisticated technologies for my defense contractors and others who produce sophisticated products.
I do not need to tell the Presiding Officer, we have lost 35,000 jobs now in 36 months in this area. When those are lost, they are not reconstituted. Once they are gone offshore, the idea that you are going to rebuild that, my experience is-and I am prepared to listen to others who want to contradict me-I think it is unlikely.
So the question I have to ask, as we stand here and receive this news almost on a daily basis, is there not some danger in losing this manufacturing capability for a time in the 21st century when we may find ourselves confronted with the fact these jobs we gave away are now being held by people in countries that do not agree with us on certain matters, and all of a sudden they do not want to supply us with certain component parts that may be necessary to build jet engines, submarines, Black Hawk helicopters or something else my State or the State of Tennessee or some other part of the country produces?
We are watching this tremendous outflow occurring. The Presiding Officer was the former Secretary of Education, as I pointed out earlier, and again I understand the budget constraints. This is a very difficult time. Putting aside whether one agrees or disagrees on how we got to this situation, we have a terrible fiscal situation on our hands and yet even in the area of job training and assistance we are wiping out the manufacturing extension partnerships; we are cutting the SBA by millions of dollars; we are cutting vocational education by $316 million; we are cutting the Workforce Investment Act by $448 million.
We are not only not trying to compete with what India is doing on its creation of call centers, by offering tax incentives for businesses to stay here, we are even cutting back in the area that might offer some hope to someone in this area who is losing their job because it has been outsourced some place.
On every front, we seem to have nothing to say to this issue right now, except this is the way life is; get over it, America. You just have to live with this. This is the way the world is going to be.
I do not think it has to be that way. I think we can do better. I think that is what the American people ask us when we come here-try to do better.
I have to look in the eyes of my own child, an infant, and I wonder what kind of a century she is going to grow up in. She will look back someday and ask herself, or hopefully me, what did you do back at the turn of this century when you knew this was going on, when you saw thousands of jobs leaving our country, when you saw manufacturing declining, what did you do? This was not some sneak attack. You were all aware of it. Your local papers wrote about it every day. Did you offer any ideas and suggestions on how we might compete in a global marketplace-because we should, we must-while simultaneously not losing the human investments, the human capital, that are critical for any successful society to succeed? What did you do?
I am afraid if we go back and she looks at what we are doing at the outset of this century, then she would be startled to learn we are cutting back in the areas that might provide some educational opportunity for people in vocational areas, that we had nothing really to say to a hemorrhaging of jobs going out of the country, and that we were basically silent except to bemoan the fact that 2.8 million manufacturing jobs in 36 months disappeared in the country. And there is every indication those numbers are going to increase, and the impact on other sectors of our economy will be very profoundly affected.
I mentioned already we are now being told the outsourcing of American jobs will probably exceed 3 million, close to 4 million over the next decade, unabated. That is a loss of $136 billion to $140 billion in salaries and wages in the United States, not to mention the human and societal impact.
So I do not apologize to my colleagues for feeling as strongly as I do about this. I am a free trader. I voted for NAFTA. I thought it was the right thing to do. I voted to give fast track authority. I voted for the Jordanian agreements and others. I have opposed some as well. I have not been exclusively for them, but I believe in free and fair trade. I also believe a self-respecting nation cannot allow its human capital intelligence to be lost without standing up and trying to do something about it.
The subject matter of this amendment very simply says at this juncture, look, let's stop. At least when it comes to the expenditure of Federal taxpayer money, those dollars ought not to be used to pay for outsourcing jobs until we figure out a better way to answer this problem. I do not think that is complicated.
Now, I gather K Street in town is going ballistic at this very hour because obviously major corporations, 400 out of 1,000 top ones in the country, are doing it. Forty of fifty States are doing it right now. So they want to continue doing it because it is a great saver of money if you are focused on quarterly reports.
That is their job on K Street and that is their job in the corporate board rooms, to worry quarter by quarter by quarter. I don't think that is right, but that is what they do. Thank the Lord there are many corporations who do think longer than that.
Our job is not to think in quarters, not to be unmindful that corporations should and must. But our obligation is to have a broader, deeper vision; to think about longer term effects of decisions we make, no matter how attractive and how appealing they may be to someone who has to explain to a group of shareholders why it is that they have or have not exceeded last quarter's profit margins-bottom line.
Certainly outsourcing will help do that on any given day. If you can hire someone for a couple of bucks and lay off that person in Connecticut, Tennessee, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, you are going to save money, I promise you. Quarterly reports are going to look great.
But my question is, What does America look like? What does our Nation look like in the coming generation? In fact, if we lose these jobs, which are critical to our own well-being and success, if we lose manufacturing that we cannot replace, if we squander the ability to produce vital components and parts that are essential to contribute to our national defense structure, what does my country look like in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years down the line?
That is the question I am asking. That is why I am offering this amendment, to see if we cannot at least step up and say when it comes to the taxpayer's dime, that we should not be taking your tax dollar and subsidizing this outsourcing of jobs. If a private company, with its own money, wants to do it, that is their business. I regret it, but if they want to do it they have a right to do it. I think we ought to have tax incentives to discourage them one way or the other, but at the end of the day if they want to do it, they ought to be given the right to do it. I can't stop that. That is their dime.
But on the taxpayer's dime, I think we ought to say something else. What my amendment does is say you cannot use that dime. You cannot use that dime to lay off somebody and hire someone 14 time zones away to do a job that a hard-working American ought to be able to hold and do in order to provide for their family.
I don't think that is outrageous. I don't think that is isolationist or protectionist. I think that is standing up for the people of this country who expect nothing less from those of us who represent them in this Chamber. That is why I am offering this amendment. My hope is tomorrow morning we can get to it and vote on it and dispose of it one way or the other. If you want to vote against it, vote against it. But I ask you to join with my colleague from Minnesota, Senator Coleman, and others who have been a part of this effort, to say this is our way of saying to people out there we hear you.
We are not suggesting this amendment is perfect. I would be the last person to say that. I am sure it is not perfect. But at least it says to voters and to constituents out there who are worrying every day whether they are going to become one of those statistics, that we are going to try to do something about this, so you need to know your Government, your Congress is doing what it can to stop this.
Our obligation is not exclusively to them. We have obligations to others as well, including those who serve and work in these corporations. I am not against them at all, but they are making their decisions in what they determine is in their best interests and the best interests of their shareholders. I respect that.
But I have a higher obligation. I have an obligation, not only to that shareholder but to the people who work for them as well. I respect those who only have to worry about the narrow constituency, but I wasn't elected by the people of Connecticut to come here and merely worry about that narrow constituency. I have another obligation. I serve in the Senate, not just a State legislature. When I am here and I vote and I cast ballots, they don't just affect the people who live in my State, that I represent; they are part of the 280 or 290 million people across this country.
I look at the 2.8 million who have lost their jobs in manufacturing, the close to 3 million who will lose their jobs to outsourcing in the coming days, maybe as many as 14 million, we are being told, over the next couple of years. I didn't dwell on this particular chart at this moment, but 14 million additional jobs are in danger of being shipped overseas. Those people want to know whether or not we have anything to say to them.
So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I don't know of another issue that is more important to the American public at this hour than this one. We have seen it all across the country in the last number of days. National news programs talk about it every single night and report nightly about corporations that are outsourcing more and more jobs.
The American people want to know what we have to say to them. So I regret we have not been able to vote on this earlier. I didn't intend to take this time. I was prepared to vote 2 hours ago, 3 hours ago, but there are those who do not want to vote on this amendment right now. My hope is we will be able to do so first thing in the morning and say with a very loud, clear, and my hope is a unanimous voice that we stand with those who worry about whether America is squandering its wealth and its treasury, not just the treasury of dollars and cents but a far more important treasury, the human capital that is the American workforce.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
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