Celebrating National Manufacturing Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the midst of this manufactured crisis here in the Capitol to join many of my colleagues on the Democratic side for something that we all can get behind, which is creating strong manufacturing jobs here in our great country.

One of the frustrations about the impasse that we have here in the House and in the Capitol is that we have some really serious issues that confront us as a country. And I think the most important among them is, where are the jobs of the future going to come from? We know that in our districts--Mr. Ryan of Ohio and some of the other speakers tonight, in my State of Delaware--that manufacturing has been the backbone, particularly of those jobs that provide middle class incomes for generations.

We've lost so many since 2008. My home State, we've lost both of our auto manufacturing plants, the General Motors plant at Boxwood Road and the Chrysler plant in Newark.

We've lost, over the past 10 years or so, Avon Products, a manufacturing facility in Newark. And for generations, downstate in the town of Seaford, the Dupont nylon plant provided a pathway to middle class for generations of families down there.

We know that the competition for those jobs, today and into the future, is going to define the success of our own ability to maintain a middle class here in the United States, and also, define the competition that we have with our neighbors around the world.

There's some hope on the horizon. In recent years, we've seen a new trend called insourcing. We're actually seeing companies moving back jobs here into the United States.

General Electric, one of the premiere manufacturing industrial conglomerates, international companies here in the U.S., has started to move appliance manufacturing to the States of Indiana and Ohio and other places in the Midwest from their plants that they moved some years ago to Mexico.

Apple just announced it'll start manufacturing a new laptop here in the United States.

But here's the thing. Not only do we have to attract and bring jobs back to the United States, but once we get them back here through this insourcing trend, we need to make sure that we keep them here.

Making things here at home, whether it's building new cars, the cars of the future, whether it's building the appliances or electronics that we're talking about, help create the strong economic foundation that we've enjoyed as a country and will do so for future generations.

So it's our job, as Members of Congress, to pass laws that will encourage innovation and job creation right here at home, and put hardworking Americans back to work. And that's why I've worked with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come up with ways to attract and keep U.S. manufacturing jobs here.

This summer, I joined my colleague from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick) to introduce the Made in America Act. It's really a simple bill. It creates a labeling system called the America Star labels, much like Energy Star, that companies can use to identify the extent to which their products are made in America.

Just this past summer I had to go shopping for a new air-conditioner. My air-conditioner broke down. And it was difficult to determine what products were made here, how much they were made here, what kind of parts were made here.

Last year I bought a new front door, a new oak front door; spent a lot of time going around trying to find a door that was made here in the U.S., and found a wonderful product just over the line in Pennsylvania.

Made in America is something that people want to see, and they want to know what the products that they buy and that they see out there in stores, how much is foreign-made and how much is made here in the USA. And people, consumers, care about it, and that's why this piece of legislation is important because it provides people with the opportunity to know that.

I also got together with the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), who's here in the Chamber, with the Scaling Up Manufacturing Act. I'm sure he'll talk about it. The bill creates a 25 percent tax credit for the cost of construction or lease of a company's first domestic manufacturing facility. Thank you, Mr. Honda, for that, for the opportunity to join you on that.

I also introduced a bill to increase the research and development tax credit from 14 percent to 17 percent and, more importantly, to make it permanent, to create certainty for businesses to locate their research and development facilities here in this country. This will give those companies that certainty that they need to set up those operations.

These are just a few examples, Mr. Speaker, of the ways that Congress can do something to make it possible for us to make things here in America again. We all believe, many of us here, frankly, on both sides of the aisle, believe that making things in America is the key to our economic recovery.

We need to get our house in order here, with the impasse that we're dealing with over the last week, and focus on these efforts, focus on the things that we can do to incentivize U.S. manufacturing.

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