Posted on 01/28/2004 9:40:39 AM PST by andy1114
There is no more important issue facing our economy today than the creation of manufacturing jobs. All of us are painfully aware of the loss of too many American manufacturing jobs. Over the past three years the United States has lost over three million manufacturing jobs – with an average of 60,000 job losses per month over the past two years. Some of these jobs have disappeared due to increased production efficiencies, but many more have been relocated overseas.
If we do not act to protect the remaining manufacturing jobs our nation faces a perilous economic future. Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, put it into perspective when she said, “We’re not just creating products; we’re building lives. Manufacturing jobs are largely responsible for creating the middle class in Michigan and the United States, providing opportunities for millions of families nationwide to participate in the American Dream. The manufacturing industry itself is the backbone of our national economy and defense. We simply cannot allow our manufacturing nucleus to erode as it has so dramatically done in the past several years.”
There are many reasons for this loss of manufacturing jobs, some of which we in Congress cannot control. But there are some factors over which we do have control and on which we must take firm action. These include excessive corporate tax rates, overburdening regulation and the high cost of litigation protection.
The American Competition Enhancement Act of 2003, which I have introduced, will address one of these causes: excessive corporate tax rates by ultimately providing an across the board tax cut of 5 percent for all corporations. Specifically, the ACE act will cut the corporate tax rate by 3 points in 2004, initially lowering the corporate rate to 32 percent. Three years later, the ACE Act would cut the tax rate by an additional 2 points, lowering the rate for corporations to 30 percent in 2007.
Such tax relief is clearly needed. For some time now, to remain competitive in the global marketplace, our trading partners have been reducing tax rates on the businesses that employ their workers. Many countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland and Turkey, have cut their corporate tax rates drastically – some by 10 percent or more.
The top average corporate tax rate for governments in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has dropped from a rate of 41 percent in 1986 to 30.9 percent in 2003. Compare this with the United States where the corporate rate has remained unchanged at 35 percent. When state and local taxes are added on top of this rate, the U.S. corporate tax rate averages 40 percent – which is more than 9 percentage points higher than the OECD average.
While other countries have been lowering corporate tax rates and more effectively competing for business and ultimately jobs, the United States has failed to respond, and American workers have suffered as those statistics I cited earlier dramatically illustrate.
In fact, instead of freeing American businesses and our workers from non-competitive tax rates, this Congress has moved in the opposite direction by making our tax laws increasingly more complex and expensive for both businesses and individuals to comply with and passing legislation like the Sarbanes-Oxley bill that created even more red tape for American businesses.
Throughout the Twentieth Century, the United States competed aggressively in the world market, and a result our competitors responded. Now, to remain competitive, Congress MUST act again, and we MUST begin by reducing corporate tax rates that have become a choke collar on American workers, restricting our ability to compete with other workers in the world market. We know that our American workers are the greatest workers in the world so there is little doubt about the favorable outcome of such competition, if only the Congress will level the playing field.
Some critics will say that we cannot have the ACE Act, but the truth is that American workers cannot afford the alternative – a continuation of these tax rates that restrict, limit and choke their ability to compete.
Right now, we are seeing the favorable effect on the economy of the tax cuts we passed last year. The recovery is gaining steam and employers are keeping the employees they have. Businesses are making capital expenditures that will create new jobs and increase their profits which, in turn, means more economic growth, more jobs, more exports, more production, and, ultimately, more dollars flowing to the Federal Treasury. Let us learn from history and pass meaningful tax relief for businesses to stimulate even more economic growth and, in turn, increase the funds in consumers’ pockets, which ultimately will mean more dollars for the Treasury of the United States.
American businesses, especially American manufacturers, face many challenges in remaining competitive in the global marketplace, and one of the biggest is our excessive corporate tax rates. The ACE Act would address this fundamental issue and enable American workers in all sectors, including manufacturing, to once again compete in the world market. Passage of this bill would also instill confidence in our manufacturing industry and encourage them to keep jobs here instead of exporting them overseas.
I will urge my colleagues in the House to consider the actions of others around the world, to consider history’s lessons, and, most importantly, to consider the negative effect our current, excessive corporate tax rate is having on workers in their own districts. I have considered all this and am determined to level the playing field and free American workers from this choke collar of taxation. This Congress must act and provide much needed relief for all American businesses that employ our people. It is past time for us to pass solid, meaningful tax legislation that supports the American worker and helps create more jobs.
With productivity growing a 8% and the GDP growing a 4% no way the economy and job growth can keep up with the fantastic productivity.
Do the numbers...the Dims have a no loose issue and you can bet they will hammer it this election year.
If government wants to create jobs, then it needs to get itself out of the way of the companies that will provide them.
The same goes for this lame administration led by Rove and gang. The come at the election cycle like the own all of 2000 votes and just need to a get a Red state or two.
They're gonna be surprised come Election day.
I just love how the Dims will outlaw wheat, then bitch about the shortage of bread...
As a small business owner,I've got one word for that statement.BINGO!
It will be interesting to see if the Democrats mention this as a part of the solution. Or the Republicans, for that matter.
It has...just under the radar of most:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2004 01:13:33 AM ] NEW DELHI: The passage of the omnibus-spending Bill with a provision to ban outsourcing by the US Senate has highlighted the central role that outsourcing or more importantly the loss of American jobs will play on the forthcoming US elections.
The Senate ban is effective only on the US companies while they are executing federal projects. This would mean that firms in the US which win federal contracts can not subcontract the project to companies outside the US.
Bush unlikely to veto outsourcing ban Bill
That takes care of the Federal sector, apparently the bill outlined in this article deals with the private sector. Of course, you will hear the incessant screams of the left about the GOP being in the pocket of big corporations, but then, what's new about that?
The government, the politicians running it really, seems only to be concerned in campaign money: getting re-elected. I doubt that they really care much who is providing that money, Americans or foreigners (through American sources as well as directly) as long as it keeps coming in.
Not a bad perspective. I just don't like all the bureacracy this would entail.
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