Political Quotes

“I thank the ranking member. I rise today to support my amendment, No. 97, originally introduced as the American Jobs Matter Act, that is included in this en bloc package. This amendment will finally allow American manufacturers to compete fairly for Department of Defense contracts. My State, which has built submarines for the Navy and has supplied our Armed Forces for generations, has lost about 130,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 20 years, and this country has lost about 6 million. At the same time, the Department of Defense, which is the largest purchaser of goods in the world, has been aggressively outsourcing work to foreign firms. Instead of finding ways to get around the Buy America law, the DOD should be doing more to help protect manufacturing jobs here at home. When we lose the capacity to produce an item that our military needs, we put ourselves at risk, and we also lose jobs. This amendment simply allows for the Federal Government to consider the number of jobs being created here in the United States as a part of a bid for U.S. defense work. Frankly, most of my constituents and our constituents probably think this already happens, but this is an important amendment for job creation and also for U.S. national security. I would like to thank Chairman McKeon and Ranking Member Smith for their willingness to work together on this issue. Mr. McKEON. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.”