Urges Action on His 5-Point Plan to Create Jobs Today and Restore America‘s Economic Strength
Today, Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3) issued the following statement on President Obama’s upcoming jobs speech.
“America faces two major tasks: overcoming the current lack of confidence and demand to create jobs quickly, and charting a path to sustained, long-term economic growth in the global economy. Earlier this summer, I released a five-point jobs plan that tackles both challenges. If we’re going to restore the prosperity of the American middle class, we need to strengthen manufacturing, level the international playing field, modernize our infrastructure, educate the workforce, and invest in innovation.
“As called for under my plan, the first step Congress and the President should take is to pass the two-year-overdue surface transportation bill and the four-year-overdue Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization. Not only would this quickly put hundreds of thousands of people to work, it would provide the public with a lasting benefit in the form of better roads, railways, airports, public transit, and other transportation infrastructure – all of which reduce delays and boost economic growth. Everyone knows we need the investment here in northeastern Illinois, which suffers from the worst congestion in America.
“While we take steps to create jobs right now, we must also chart a path to long-term economic strength. That means no longer turning a blind eye to the offshoring of U.S. manufacturing jobs and striving to once again become the workshop of the world. That’s why this jobs plan includes my bipartisan National Manufacturing Strategy Act, H.R. 1366, which will produce a strategy with broad support for promoting job creation in the manufacturing sector. And that’s why it includes my Buy American Improvement Act, H.R. 2722, which would boost manufacturing by helping to ensure the federal government buys products stamped ‘Made in U.S.A.’ whenever possible.
“We also need to level the international playing field for American workers and companies. This entails standing up to China’s illegal trade practices and combating its currency manipulation, which if halted would create at least 500,000 jobs. We also need to stop passing job-killing NAFTA-style trade deals.
“At the same time, we have to face up to the challenges we confront in an increasingly globalized economy. Students in other countries are outperforming their counterparts in the U.S. in math and science while their governments pour money into advanced research and challenge America‘s leadership in technological innovation. As ranking member of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee, I helped write and pass the America COMPETES Act to improve math and science education and put us on a path to double investment in job-creating high-tech research. The federal government has a limited but critical role to play in education and innovation, and I continue to work to ensure it makes a positive contribution.
“I’m looking forward to hearing directly from President Obama on Thursday about his plan for getting Americans back to work. A number of proposals have been floated in recent days and discussed in general terms, and I’m eager for specifics. I strongly believe there are issues on which both parties should be able to work together to ignite job growth. Very understandably, there is a lot of pessimism in America today, with polls showing that three quarters of the public believes the country is headed in the wrong direction. But just as America emerged even stronger from the depths of the Great Depression, I believe that if we take the right approach we will find our best days are still ahead of us.”
For more on the Congressman’s jobs plan, visit http://www.lipinski.house.gov/uploads/JobsPlan11.pdf.