House moves to save manufacturing

Manufacturing News, Source : The Manufacturer US
Published : 08 Sep 2003 15:02

US House Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo (R-IL) last month organized 29 fellow House members into a special caucus devoted to preserve manufacturing jobs in America. Headed by Manzullo and co-chair Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), the group has announced a number of initiatives to reverse the job- less trend in the manufacturing sector, estimated at almost 3 million in the past three years.

US House Small Business Committee Chairman Don Manzullo (R-IL) last month organized 29 fellow House members into a special caucus devoted to preserve manufacturing jobs in America. Headed by Manzullo and co-chair Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), the group has announced a number of initiatives to reverse the job- less trend in the manufacturing sector, estimated at almost 3 million in the past three years.

“We are hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs in this country, and not enough of our political leaders understand the ramifications of losing our industrial base,” Chairman Manzullo said at the announcement. “We formed this caucus to not only educate Washington on the importance of manufacturing in America, but to enact policies to stem the job loss and put our people back to work.”

The group intends to focus on a number of aspects it sees as the cause of the problem. First, it maintains that the Bush Administration should get tougher with Asian countries such as China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea concerning their continued actions to keep their currencies lower against the US dollar. It also presses the Congress at large to pass legislation such as The Job Protection Act of 2003 (H.R. 1769), which would provide tax incentives to companies that keep jobs in the United States.

“We need to send a clear message to our workforce that Congress is behind them one hundred percent,” said caucus member Connecticut Rep. Rob Simmons in a statement. “We can do this by awarding federal contracts to American companies and reform our export control policies so that American manufacturers do not needlessly get shut out of opportunities to compete for work overseas.”

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