In this series of blog posts, Senator Coons’ legislative staff shares their analysis of the President’s State of the Union address with Delawareans.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to opening up fast-growing new markets around the world to American goods and services, creating new trade opportunities that will help American businesses grow and create jobs.
President Obama proposed that we “complete negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” which would “boost American exports, support American jobs, and level the playing field in the growing markets of Asia.” He also announced that the he will “launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union, because trade that is fair and free across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.”
Senator Coons has been working hard to help open new global markets where Delaware companies can sell their goods and services. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, he is working to ensure that these fast-growing new markets with burgeoning middle classes are open to American products to help strengthen our economy here at home.
Gaining access to markets all over the world has been instrumental in helping the American economy grow and prosper over the last century. To continue our economic recovery, Chris believes it is crucial that we continue to create better access to international markets and help American business and workers by removing barriers to our goods and products.
In particular, markets in both Asia and the European Union present important opportunities for Delaware's poultry companies to expand their exports. This trade will allow us to make progress in breaking down barriers to Delaware's poultry exports.
In this series of blog posts, Senator Coons’ legislative staff shares their analysis of the President’s State of the Union address with Delawareans.
In last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama said that while “our economy is adding jobs…too many people still can’t find full-time employment.”
Senator Coons agrees, which is why he has been working closely with Delaware businesses to find innovative ways to help them grow and create jobs, even in a tough economy. Along with the other members of the Delaware Congressional delegation, he hosted nine job fairs in two years, connecting employers ready to hire with 10,000 Delaware job seekers
Chris believes more must be done to support and sustain American innovators—especially in the manufacturing sector. If we want to stay competitive in a global economy, we have to invest in job training programs and policies that create cutting-edge, high-quality jobs.
In his address, President Obama noted that our manufacturing sector has added about 500,000 jobs over the past three years and announced three new “manufacturing hubs,” while challenging Congress to create a network of fifteen of these hubs to “guarantee that the next revolution in manufacturing is Made in America.”
Chris has worked hard on incentivizing the growth of America’s advanced manufacturing sector and has urged Congress to pursue policies support the growth of high-tech and clean energy manufacturing in America.
He has met with Delaware manufacturers and turned their ideas into legislative action, building bipartisan support for new tax credits to support local manufacturers and ensure quality products are “Made in America, Manufactured in Delaware.”
For example, Chris introduced the Startup Innovation Credit, a bipartisan bill that would allow innovative startup companies to take advantage of the successful Research and Development Tax Credit. He is also an original cosponsor of the Bring Jobs Home Act, which offers tax credits from companies that relocate their manufacturing operations from abroad back to the United States.
Last week, Senator Coons took part in a launch celebration unveiling the new Horn Program in Entrepreneurship at UD.
Made possible by a generous gift from Charles and Patricia Horn, this program will encourage students to pursue the kind of entrepreneurial ideas that will power Delaware’s economy for years to come.
The Horn program will enhance and expand entrepreneurial studies at UD and be made up of a variety of initiatives like the Venture Development Center, a student business incubator, Hen Hatch, UD’s premier startup funding competition and an annual President’s Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. It will also support new curricular offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Chris believes that supporting our innovators and entrepreneurs is critical to our economic recovery.
To read more about his work to create jobs and promote American economic competitiveness, click here.
On Monday, Senator Coons spoke with members of the Junior Achievement Titan Challenge. JA’s Titan Challenge is a global online simulation program involving 24 high school students and recent graduates who compete in a virtual economy. The teams of students, coming from China, Russia, Poland, Canada, and the U.S., act as chief executive officers of a virtual manufacturing company as they make business and ethical decisions in an attempt to outperform their competitors.
“JA’s Titan Challenge is about empowering students, allowing them to learn outside the classroom and helping them experience the business world while preparing for their future,” Chris said. “This is a great opportunity for like-minded students and community volunteers from all over the world to compete and learn from one another.”
Junior Achievement is a nonprofit organization and the world’s largest organization that has impacted over 4 million U.S. students with the help of over 178,000 volunteers. JA of Delaware recently received two prestigious awards at the JA National Leadership Conference.
The most important responsibility I have as your senator is to support job creation. Our economy is starting to recover, but there are still far too many Delawareans out of work. That is why we are continuing to host job fairs across the state, connecting job seekers with employers ready to hire, and working to help Delaware businesses access the capital they need to grow and create new jobs.
One of the keys to fueling American economic growth and ensuring we remain competitive in the global economy is putting in place policies that support and sustain innovation. American ingenuity has always been at the core of our economic success. From inventing the light bulb to perfecting the search engine, we have never lacked good ideas. The challenges of the global economy may be new, but America’s advantage – our entrepreneurs and innovators – remains the same. We just have to support their work so they can continue to grow and create jobs.
Over the last few months, I’ve partnered with Republicans and Democrats alike to introduce legislation that will support our most innovative companies – the ones with the highest job-creation potential.
Watching cable news, it would be easy to think the Senate is stuck in partisan gridlock, and to an extent, that is true. Yet there are also decent people of both parties who want to get things done, especially when it comes to our economy. To those of us in Delaware, that is the rule, rather than the exception, but unfortunately, Washington doesn’t always work the same way.
That is why I was so glad to find partners like Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and Senator Jerry Moran from Kansas. They are both conservative Republicans, but I’ve worked with them and Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, on a series of job-creation proposals we bundled together in a bill called the Startup Act 2.0.
The Startup Act 2.0 is designed to promote innovation and jumpstart the economy through the creation and growth of new businesses and jobs. It is based on research showing that for almost 30 years, companies less than five years old have created almost all the net new jobs in America – at an average of about three million new jobs a year. So we pulled together ideas that help bring university research from the lab to the marketplace, ideas that encourage investments in new startup companies and more in the hopes of creating an environment where entrepreneurs can succeed.
Our bill contains an array of job-creating measures for small businesses, such as exempting capital gains taxes on investments in startups, which the independent Kauffman Foundation tells us would unlock $7.5 billion of new investment. It also supports innovative small businesses with an expanded research and development tax credit, an idea Senator Rubio and I introduced together last fall as part of our bipartisan AGREE Act and something I will continue fighting to pass because it is critical for Delaware small business.
With the right resources, American products can be manufactured in Delaware and remain competitive in the global marketplace. It is happening every day across our state, at companies of all sizes, including Miller Metal in Bridgeville, a local shop that is going head-to-head with Chinese metal fabricators – and winning.
We have to continue to support this kind of entrepreneurship and innovation in all sectors of our economy, including in the energy sector. There is going to be a clean energy economy in the years ahead, the only question is whether American businesses, families and workers will be at the center or the periphery. If we want to stay competitive in the race for homegrown, affordable, renewable sources of energy, we have to make sure our financial innovation keeps up with our technological innovation.
That is why this spring, I introduced bipartisan legislation to level the playing field and make a tax credit that has long supported oil and gas projects available to renewable energy projects like wind, solar and biofuels. The bill I wrote with Senator Moran, the Master Limited Partnership Parity Act, could bring significant capital off the sidelines to give clean energy innovators and projects the critical private sector support they need to get their product to the marketplace.
The bottom line is that America’s researchers, business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs are already working to help create jobs and ensure American competitiveness in the global economy. We just have to support and sustain their hard work, and we cannot take the rest of the year off just because there’s an election coming up. Even in this difficult, partisan atmosphere, we have to find ways to work together and get things done. Innovation will drive American economic competitiveness for generations to come, and our job is to help our innovators and entrepreneurs do their jobs.
U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) took to the Senate floor on Wednesday morning to urge his Senate colleagues to stand together to help U.S. companies “insource” jobs by passing the Bring Jobs Home Act. The legislation, which Senator Coons is an original cosponsor of, ends taxpayer subsidies to companies that ship jobs overseas and incentivizes companies to bring jobs back to the United States. The bill is expected to be voted on by the full Senate on Thursday.
This week, members of the U.S. House introduced a bipartisan companion to the Startup Act 2.0, which was introduced in the Senate by Senator Coons, along with Senators Moran, Rubio and Warner.
The House companion to the Startup Act 2.0, introduced by Reps. Michael Grimm (R-NY) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), shows continued strong, bipartisan momentum for this important legislation to jump-start our economy and help businesses grow and create jobs.
“Startup 2.0 is about creating American jobs,” Rep. Grimm said in a press release. “Too often we educate the world’s best and brightest in STEM fields, only to send them back to countries like India and China to open businesses and compete against us. This bill will keep top talent here in the U.S. to build businesses that hire Americans, and drive U.S. innovation and competitiveness.”
“As our economy continues to recover, we must further enable our entrepreneurs to grow and to create jobs,” Rep. Sanchez said in a press release. “Startup 2.0 legislation is a natural follow-up to our efforts to jumpstart the economy and it is exactly the kind of legislation the United States needs to keep up with India, China and the rest of the global market.”
Senator Coons joined his colleagues on the Senate floor for a colloquy on the Startup Act 2.0 earlier this week. Click here to watch.
Bloomberg View noted this week that America’s competitors in the global economy are welcoming highly skilled, highly educated immigrants with open arms, and warned that if the United States doesn’t do the same, we will lose out on job creating potential.
To see the results of self-defeating U.S. immigration policies, you need only open your browser to www.canadavisa.com. There, you’ll see a shrewd neighbor fishing for talent at U.S. expense.
At the top of the website, in large print, is the question: “Currently on an H1B Visa or otherwise working or studying in the United States?” There is nothing subtle about the appeal. Canada is seeking skilled foreigners who’ve grown frustrated with the U.S. visa gantlet, which can take a decade for the lucky few who manage even to begin it.
The Bloomberg editorial mentions the Startup Act 2.0, legislation Senator Coons introduced with Senators Mark Warner, Jerry Moran and Marco Rubio. To help create jobs, this legislation would create a new visa for immigrants who graduate from U.S. universities with an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or math fields. It would also create an entrepreneur’s visa to help immigrants with capital start businesses and create jobs in the United States.
In addition, earlier this year, Senator Coons introduced the bipartisan SMART Jobs Act with Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. This legislation offers another solution to the problem of America losing highly skilled immigrants – and their job creating potential – to our foreign competitors by creating a clear path forward for foreign-born, American-educated holders of advanced degrees in key fields to remain in the United States.
Studies have shown that immigrants are nearly twice as likely as U.S.-born individuals to start new businesses. Immigrant-founded startup companies created 450,000 jobs in less than a decade, and collectively they have generated over $50 billion in sales in a single year. More than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, but arbitrary and limiting per-country visa caps are sending nearly 20,000 foreign-born, American-educated degree-holders out of the country each year.
The News Journal: In a Sunday editorial, the News Journal wrote about the importance of the Startup Act 2.0. Introduced last week by U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), this legislation will help jumpstart the economy through the creation and growth of new businesses and jobs.
It is based upon research showing that for close to three decades, companies less than five years old have created almost all of the net new jobs in America, averaging about three million new jobs each year.
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware was joined by fellow Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia and Republicans Jerry Moran of Kansas and Marco Rubio of Florida in proposing “Startup Act 2.0.” The “2.0” means it’s an updated version of an earlier Moran-Warner proposal.
Startup 2.0 would do several important and smart things. First, it would create “STEM visas” for foreign students to come here to earn graduate degrees in science and math. It also would create “entrepreneur visas” for legal immigrants who start businesses.
On Thursday, the Senate passed legislation authored by Senator Coons to avert a crisis in America’s bankruptcy courts system. Chris introduced the Temporary Bankruptcy Judgeship Extension Act to extend 29 temporary bankruptcy judgeships in 14 states and Puerto Rico — including five judgeships in Delaware — at risk of expiration and dramatically overburdening these key federal courts.
Without Congressional action, when a judge in one of these temporary appointments retired, resigned or died in office, they could not be replaced – leaving other judges to take on their caseloads and slowing down the system for everyone. Bankruptcy courts help individuals get a fresh start and corporations restructure without having to lay off workers, making them extremely important to Delaware’s economy.
“Having a full bench of bankruptcy court judges will allow for a renewed economic stability for many who have fallen into financial hardships,” Senator Coons said. “Talented bankruptcy judges can help turn a likely economic loss into a successful reorganization that protects jobs and creditors. This legislation will ensure that these judgeships remain in place and continue to fairly and expeditiously resolve bankruptcy claims — a key component of our economy as companies and individuals get back on their feet.”
More than one-third of the nation’s largest bankruptcies are handled by Delaware’s bankruptcy judges, which are hailed for their experience, speed and predictability. Five of Delaware’s six judgeships have temporary authorizations that have expired. One additional Wilmington-based bankruptcy court is on loan from the eastern district of Pennsylvania, and also has a temporary authorization that has expired.
Faced with increasing demand on the federal court system, Congress has created dozens of temporary bankruptcy judgeships over the last 20 years to help the courts keep pace. The Temporary Bankruptcy Judgeships Extension Act of 2011 heeds the recommendations made last year by the non-partisan Judicial Conference of the United States, whose biennial review urged Congress to prevent the expiration of the 30 temporary bankruptcy judgeships covered by this bill by extending each by five years. The statutory authorization to fill these judgeships, should they be vacated — as happened when Judge Arthur Gonzalez of the Southern District of New York retired this winter — has already lapsed, preventing Congress and the President from appointing a replacement.
The Temporary Bankruptcy Judgeship Extension Act of 2011 was introduced in the Senate in November and passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in December. The House of Representatives passed the legislation on December 8. Amended in the Senate Thursday night, the House will have to vote on the legislation again. It is expected to pass.
“I’m grateful to my colleagues in the Senate for coming together in bipartisan way to move this legislation forward,” Senator Coons said. “No one wants to see companies file for bankruptcy, but when they do, it’s important their cases are handled professionally and by a court that isn’t so overloaded with cases that it can’t give them the attention they need. These courts protect American jobs every day. This legislation will help ensure they can continue to do so as our economic recovery grows.”
The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Dean Heller (R-Nev.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).
