Edward M. Kennedy: “it is a privilege to take this opportunity to express my strong support for this legislation. The National…”

“it is a privilege to take this opportunity to express my strong support for this legislation. The National Competitiveness Act will encourage growth in one of the Nation's most important economic sectors, our manufacturing base. Our goal is to increase productivity and promote better jobs and better wages for American workers. The need is obvious, and we have an administration that is working with Congress to meet it. Real wages have stagnated since the mid- 1970s, and so have family incomes. As a result, families can no longer count on steady improvements in their standard of living. It used to be part of the American dream that each generation did better than the preceding one, and that children could expect to do better than their parents; now they can barely hope to do as well, and often even that standard is difficult or impossible to achieve. S. 4 is designed to help reverse this distressing trend by encouraging investment in new technologies and ensuring that industry and workers have access to the latest advances in manufacturing.”