Sherrod Brown: “the Manufacturing Extension Program helps small manufacturers in my State of Ohio and nationwide to improve their…”

“the Manufacturing Extension Program helps small manufacturers in my State of Ohio and nationwide to improve their efficiency, increase their competitiveness, and stay in business. With funding of about $111 million in 2003, the Manufacturing Extension Program, MEP, helped over 18,000 U.S. manufacturing firms increase sales by almost a billion dollars and cut costs by almost $700 million. In Ohio, that meant helping some 2,700 businesses to create or retain over 1,100 jobs, increase sales by $20 million, cut costs by over $47 million, and increase investments by $58 million. But despite that track record of success, President Bush, in order to pay for the tax cuts that go overwhelmingly to the 1 percent wealthiest people in this country, President Bush has repeatedly put the Manufacturing Extension Program on the chopping block. He proposed another round of MEP funding cuts for next year. The President's 2006 budget cuts MEP funding by 56 percent, understanding all of the manufacturing jobs lost in State after State after State, some 2\1/2\ million jobs in the last 5 years, the President wants to cut one of the few programs that works for American manufacturing. Today the House passed H.R. 250, legislation which would extend MEP by adding a new component that links small manufacturers with academic institutions. But this bill should have given us an opportunity to do much more for American manufacturers.…”