NEW YORK - Congressman Rangel joined House Democratic Leaders in support of the "Make it in America" agenda that focuses on increasing American manufacturing and creating new American jobs. This new legislative initiative builds on House Democrats' actions since the start of the Great Recession to create jobs and lay the foundation for a strong economy.

"When we make it in America, we're not shipping jobs overseas," said Congressman Rangel. "We create jobs and keep our dollars at home when we buy products made in the U.S.A. This is the way to spur innovation and encourage American ingenuity. This is how we can build a sustainable economy."

The "Make It In America" national manufacturing strategy includes the following goals to create the high‐skill, high‐wage jobs of the future— promoting American competitiveness, innovation, and exports:

•    Close tax loopholes that encourage outsourcing U.S. jobs overseas.
•    Provide hometown tax credits to help small businesses hire new employees and sell their products and innovation overseas.
•    Boost incentives to create American clean energy jobs like making state‐of‐the‐art wind turbines and solar panels–paid for by ending corporate welfare to Big Oil.
•    Strengthen rules that U.S. and its contractors buy American, especially to build transportation, energy, and communications infrastructure.
•    Demand that China and other countries to honor fair trade principles or lose American business.
•    Give incentives to hire and retrain America’s returning veterans for new clean energy jobs.
•    Strengthen partnerships with businesses to retrain America’s workers for jobs of the future.

"MAKE IT IN AMERICA" BILLS RECENTLY PASSED BY THE HOUSE:

U.S. MANUFACTURING ENHANCEMENT ACT (Miscellaneous Tariff Bill), H.R. 4380 (Rep. Levin, Signed into Law)
•    Helps U.S. manufacturers compete at home and abroad through over 600 tariff suspensions and reductions on intermediate products or materials these companies use that are not made domestically.
•    By reducing costs for U.S. businesses and increasing the competitiveness of their products, would increase U.S. production, expand GDP, and support tens of thousands of American jobs.
•    Supported by a 130 businesses including Chamber of Commerce and NAM, the bill passed by a vote of 378‐43 despite the GOP Leadership’s opposition.

PROTECTING AMERICAN PATENTS, H.R. 5874 (Rep. Mollohan, Signed into Law)
•    Makes supplemental appropriations for the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), fully offset, to allow the PTO to prevent additional backlogs in patent applications and improve efficiency of patent examinations.
•    Patents are critical to American innovation and economic growth, supporting good paying jobs here at home, by providing protections for new ideas and technologies.
•    Patents are crucial to help safeguard the American innovations that fuel emerging manufacturing sectors, like clean energy technology, from intellectual property theft by foreign competitors.

PREVENTING OUTSOURCING H.R. 1586 (Signed into Law)
•    Closes tax loopholes that encourage companies to ship American jobs overseas and cuts the deficit by more than $1 billion.
99% of House Republicans voted NO.

STRENGTHENING EMPLOYMENT CLUSTERS TO ORGANIZE REGIONAL SUCCESS (SECTORS), H.R. 1855 (Rep. Loebsack)
•    Supports new “sector” or “industry partnerships” that bring together businesses, unions, educators and job training institutions to develop and implement plans that help workers train for and advance in high‐demand and emerging industries.

NATIONAL MANUFACTURING STRATEGY ACT, H.R. 4692 (Rep. Lipinski)
•    Calls for a national manufacturing strategy, crucial to job creation and our economic success after losing 4.6 million manufacturing jobs under the Bush Administration.
•    The strategy should identify goals and recommendations for how the federal government, as well as state, local and private institutions, can best support the growth of U.S. manufacturers into the markets of the future.

CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY MANUFACTURING AND EXPORT ASSISTANCE ACT, H.R. 5156 (Rep. Matsui)
•    Strengthens the competitiveness of the U.S. clean technology industry in domestic and international markets.
•    Supports the development and implementation of a National Clean Energy Technology Export Strategy, and help U.S. firms find and navigate foreign markets.
•    Strengthen America’s domestic clean‐tech manufacturing sector by promoting policies that would reduce production costs and encourage innovation, investment and productivity in the sector.
•    Clean energy technology exports could increase by $40 billion per year and create more than 750,000 jobs by 2020. [Energy Department]

EMERGENCY TRADE DEFICIT COMMISSION, H.R. 1875 (Rep. DeFazio)
•    Establish a commission to tackle the U.S. trade deficit ‐‐ which doubled under Bush and threatens our economic and national security by forcing us to borrow from China, for example.
It will examine the nature, causes and consequences of the U.S. trade deficit and make recommendations on reducing trade imbalances.

 OTHER MANUFACTURING BILLS PASSED BY THE HOUSE:
 
COMPETES REAUTHORIZATION, H.R. 5116 (Rep. Gordon)
•    Creates jobs with innovative technology loan guarantees for small and mid‐sized manufacturers and Regional Innovation Clusters to expand scientific and economic collaboration
•    Improves the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships ‐‐ public‐private partnerships to stimulate new manufacturing processes and technologies to improve the productivity and competitiveness of small manufacturers—to better reflects the needs of manufacturers today and by strengthening their financial status during this difficult economic time.
•    Directs the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Centers to inform local community colleges of the skill sets that are needed by area manufacturers, to help ensure that students have the specific job training necessary to secure a good‐paying job in their community.
•    Promotes high‐risk high reward research to pioneer the cutting‐edge discoveries of tomorrow through ARPA‐E and Energy Innovation Hubs ‐‐ multidisciplinary collaborations that support research, development, and commercial application of advanced energy technologies ‐‐ for American energy independence.

HOME STAR JOBS, H.R. 5019 (Rep. Welch)
•    Provides incentives for consumers to make their homes energy‐efficient ‐‐ promoting the sale and installation of insulation, duct sealing, windows and doors, air sealing and water heaters
•    Creates 168,000 jobs in jobs in construction, manufacturing and retail – industries that have been devastated by the Bush economic crisis
•    This will be a boon for U.S. manufacturing and construction industries, as energy‐efficiency products are almost exclusively made in America—like windows, doors, and insulation—and installation jobs cannot be exported.
•    Cuts energy bills for 3 million families, and reduces our dangerous dependence on foreign oil and dirty fuels.

ADVANCED VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY ACT, H.R. 3246 (Rep. Peters)
•    Invests in a diverse range of near‐term and long‐term vehicle technologies to improve fuel efficiency, support domestic research and manufacturing, and lead to greater consumer choice of vehicle technologies and fuels

   
FACTS ABOUT AMERICAN MANUFACTURING

Helping to lead the economy out of the Bush recession, America’s manufacturing base has grown for 13 straight months—with more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs created over the last eight months. The United States is the world’s largest manufacturing economy, producing 21 percent of global manufactured products. Japan is second at 13 percent and China is third at 12 percent.

•    R&D – American manufacturers are responsible for two‐thirds of research and development investment in the United States; nearly 80 percent of all patents filed come from the manufacturing sector.
•    Technology – American manufacturers are the leading buyers of new technology in the United States.
•    Good Paying Jobs – American manufacturing directly employs 14 million Americans and creates 8 million additional jobs in other sectors. In 2009, the average U.S. manufacturing worker earned $70,666 annually, including pay and benefits; the average non‐manufacturing worker earned $57,993 annually.
•    Economic Growth & Productivity– American manufacturing is the largest single contributor the U.S. economy generating about 12 percent of our gross domestic product. U.S. manufacturers are the most productive workers in the world—twice as productive as workers in the next 10 leading manufacturing economies.
•    Exports – Manufacturing makes up two‐thirds of our nation’s total exports of goods and services
•    National Security—Manufacturing also ensures we have a strong industrial base to support our national security objectives.