Janice Schakowsky: “I wanted to go back to this theme of a robust middle class. It's really in the manufacturing sector. It's really making…”

“I wanted to go back to this theme of a robust middle class. It's really in the manufacturing sector. It's really making it in America that built the middle class in our country. Yet there are people--and you hear it all the time--who say, you know what, these jobs are never going to come back. Just forget about it. We're not going to do this kind of manufacturing in America anymore. Why would that be? That is a myth that we have to bust. Of course, we can make it in America. We're not going to necessarily see factories where people are doing those kinds of repetitive jobs, and we don't want to see those dirty smokestacks come back. It's the vast manufacturing, the manufacturing for the 21st century and beyond, of clean jobs and of creating energy-storing batteries that we need and that we can export all around the world--the wind turbines that need to be built all over the world. Those innovators are here. Instead of turning it over to some other country--to China or some other country--to then make the stuff or create the supply chain, we should make it right here. With transportation costs going up as they have been, it's actually becoming economically advantageous to make it in America. That's why manufacturers are actually coming back, and we want to encourage that at every step. So the idea that somehow making it in America--factory work--is passe is absolutely wrong.…”