On the recordApril 27, 2016
I am honored to be here today to speak about the American Manufacturing Competitiveness Act of 2016. This bipartisan bill will help our manufacturers of all sizes reduce costs, create jobs, and compete in the global market by creating a transparent process that is entirely consistent with House rules. This legislation is formally called the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill, or MTB for short, but it makes more sense to think of this as an MTB of another kind: legislation providing manufacturing tax breaks, plain and simple. Before I begin to speak more specifically about what this bill does, I would like to tell you why it is so essential for the success of our economy. Since 2012, American manufactures have had to pay full tariffs-- border taxes, in essence--for certain imported products that aren't made in the United States, unnecessarily increasing their costs. These tariffs, or border taxes, have cost them $748 million a year, and there has been no opportunity for them to get relief from these taxes. These border taxes, in turn, have made it harder for them to sell their products, grow their businesses, create jobs, and invest in their communities. A coalition of American businesses of all sizes explained it best in their recent letter.…
