Make it in America

Floor Speech

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Ms. SUTTON. Thank you very much, Representative Garamendi, for your leadership as we move forward to activate our manufacturing base to revitalize our economy. By enacting policies that will work with our U.S. manufacturers and our workers, we are going to ``make it in America.''

Manufacturing is the backbone of our economy; it's the backbone of our national security and, frankly, the promise of the middle class. When I grew up, it was a time when people could count on a good manufacturing job to put food on the table and take care of their families and have a pension that they could count on that would be there when they retired, and security. But we've watched our Nation witness the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs due to policies that put our companies and our workers at an unfair disadvantage. Over the last decade, we've certainly seen those effects across the country, but we've seen them in a big way in Ohio.

The U.S. has lost roughly 6 million manufacturing jobs, with Ohio losing more than one in three manufacturing jobs in the last decade. We've seen factory after factory close as jobs are shipped overseas. We've seen our workers and our jobs undercut by foreign countries and foreign companies and competitors that engage in unfair trade tactics, ranging from Chinese currency manipulation, which is the same thing as cheating, to illegally subsidized steel; and for too long we haven't had a comprehensive plan to reverse this trend. But with our Make It in America initiative, we are saying very loudly, very clearly, and very persistently that we have had enough, that we are going to pass policies that work with and for our U.S. manufacturers and our workers and our country.

Today we passed three bills that are going to bolster U.S. manufacturing and provide for families in northeast Ohio and across this country opportunities for good jobs for today and for tomorrow, because though we may make different things or improved things, we still need to make things; and we're going to do it today, and we're going to do it tomorrow.

Manufacturing jobs have a multiplier effect like no other job out there. Each manufacturing job can generate at least four other jobs in the private sector. Our workers can compete--we know it--as long as they have a level playing field, and our Make It in America agenda is going to help level that playing field.

So I'm very happy to be with you. I know we're going to talk about the bills that were passed today. And I want to just also, before I turn it over, talk about something that we're going to do tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to, under the Make It in America agenda, we are going to take up the Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act, known as AQUA. It includes an amendment of mine that will ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars, number one, are going to be used to build our cities' drinking water and sewer systems, and that when we do that, American-made steel and iron and manufactured goods are going to be used to build them.

It is just another example of the things that we can do to make it in America and to make it possible for our workers and for our economy to make it in America.

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Ms. SUTTON. We have seen our ``buy America'' provisions in a number of our bills be whittled away over time so that we aren't ensured the way that we should be. When taxpayer dollars are used, I think the American taxpayers expect that we use goods made in America and that we put Americans to work. That is what this amendment is now going to ensure so that the predicament that you've described can't happen, because we now have an amendment to stop it.

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Ms. SUTTON. You bring up such an important point.

We had this policy that encouraged jobs to be moved offshore, and we had other policies that, frankly, allowed, for many years, unfair practices to undercut our workers and our businesses.

Now, I know we're all pretty new here. You know, I'm in my second term, and you're in your first term, and the gentleman from Wisconsin--you know, we just came here, so we're fresh in the fight. Yet the reality is that it is important to notice what was happening before the big recession hit.

So in Ohio, those wages have taken our jobs overseas, with the help of tax policies that we have finally been able, with the majority on this side of the aisle, to pass by ourselves to try and change.

And it does beg the question, and I listened to your comments earlier about how we went through this litany of measures to try and stabilize the economy, and we did. And now, of course, this is so important because this goes beyond stabilizing the economy, and it goes towards creating real value by making real things, not pretend values that the banks made and people moving money around made.

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Ms. SUTTON. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and I would--because sometimes we come down here and we make the case, but it's important to also let people know that it's not just us saying this. The Economic Policy Institute, on this point about China, the Economic Policy Institute reported that unfair trade with China has cost our Nation 2.4 million jobs between 2001 and 2008.

Ohio, where I am so honored to serve, has lost nearly 92,000 jobs because of China alone. In my congressional district, the 13th District of Ohio, made up of hardworking citizens who want nothing but a fair shake, in my congressional district, 5,700 jobs have been lost as a result of China's currency manipulation, pointed out by the gentleman from Wisconsin, and other illegal subsidies and unfair trade barriers. And these, of course, are good paying jobs that pay family sustaining wages.

And if I could just indulge the gentleman for one moment about a case study, something that has played out in the past year or so. You know, during this recession,

when market forces would indicate that you cut back on steel production, do you know what China did? They ramped up production. They dumped that steel into the United States, and my steel companies, our manufacturing companies in Lorain, Ohio, at U.S. Steel--and I like the name, U.S. Steel--were undercut, and so our workers were laid off.

So what did we do? What is our mechanism? Right? Our mechanism is we go to the International Trade Commission. So they had a preliminary hearing, and I went to the preliminary hearing, which was, evidently, an unusual move. But I think I've got to do everything I can to stand up for the people that I represent, so I went to the preliminary hearing.

We got them to move the process forward to a final hearing. We took a letter, I took a letter signed by 40-some colleagues in this House, and we went--I went and others got others to go, and we all went to the final hearing of the ITC. This was about oil country tubular goods, which is what we make in the 13th Congressional District, and how China was unfairly subsidizing their steel.

And what happened? A unanimous decision that it was, indeed, happening. And you know what? That's good, right. That's good news. But the only problem is our people have been out of a job for over a year before we get the tariff gone.

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Ms. SUTTON. You are so right. I just want to put a highlight on this fact. When we went to that hearing, the standard for judgment is material harm. So we showed that these actions were undertaken and resulted in material harm; and that material harm, those are people, people with families that they're trying to raise right here in this country right in Lorain, Ohio, and in Wisconsin, and all over this great country. And because of the length of time that this went on, these folks didn't have the income coming in. And guess what? Then our communities didn't have the tax base to support what? Police and fire and city services. And we end up what? Paying unemployment. And people suffer the loss of the dignity of work, which is so important to the people that I represent. They just want an opportunity.

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Ms. SUTTON. I thank the gentleman, and I could not agree more. Call the bluff. Let them get up, make the case to the American people about why they're standing between people who need jobs and the jobs that can be there. I mean, I don't think the American people will stand with them. I think they will stand with these policies that we are offering now in this agenda and this moment forward on making it in America.

And I just have to ask the question, because it is really startling if you think about, you laid out all of the things that we did to try and stabilize the economy, and all of the actions we are undertaking and have been undertaking as we build towards the future, where we can make products in America and we can also enable our communities and our workers and our businesses to make it in America.

Every once in a while people must turn on the TV, I know that they do, and they hear our counterparts on the other side, and they say over and over again, as if the American people won't notice that they're voting against everything, they say: Where are the jobs? Where are the jobs?

Well, the reality of it is we're putting the bills on the floor and you're voting against the jobs. So there's this idea that they must insult the American people by suggesting that somehow the jobs are missing. You're voting against the jobs, and now you have a chance to join us in the Make It in America.

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Ms. SUTTON. Or a bridge or a highway. We want this to all be made in America. These are taxpayer dollars. The taxpayers expect it to happen. We need to do this work when it needs to be done, but we need to do it with the American workers and American businesses having the chance to make it in America.

I just want to say to my friend from Wisconsin, I know what he's trying to convey in his remarks, but you know, the American people, they are facing great challenges, and that's what you're reflecting in your comments.

And I have to tell you that I still think that this job, this honor that I have to serve here, I don't think it's painful. I think it's a privilege and I think it's an honor, and I know that the gentleman thinks the same thing about his service in this House.

Because when people are facing the unfair competition that they are facing, the policies that are working against them instead of with them, the cheating that goes on with currency manipulation and unfair practices, all of those things that are happening, we are here in this moment and we have a chance to change it for them and it matters the most.

So I am very excited about being here, fighting forward, not fighting back, but fighting forward to make sure that we make it in America by strengthening U.S. manufacturing at every turn in ways that make sense for our country, our people. We know we need to manufacture here also because our national security requires us to make things in America.

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