Make It In America

Floor Speech

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Well, Congressman, let me just thank you for holding down this Special Order and congratulations to you and Congressman Tonko. In California, you-all conveyed the message, and I want to congratulate your whole State for your success from our side of the aisle.

But unfortunately I'm going to have to be here for a short while tonight, but I just wanted to come down and share a few moments with you and the Speaker and the American people, talk about the importance of maintaining and holding on to that vision of making it in America because we did it before, we can do it again, but it will not happen by magic. It's going to take some things.

It's going to take, first of all, some investment in education. It's going to take some investment in our Nation's infrastructure. It's going to take some real investment in our small businesses so that they can get it moving, and it's going to take some real investment in our belief in ourselves to reclaim this mantle of manufacturer for the world.

This can happen. We've done it before. America still is the leading manufacturing Nation in the world, but we've seen other nations creeping up on us. We can do it but these investments are going to have to happen.

In this Congress, we made tremendous investments in, as you already pointed out, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Important. We call it the stimulus for shorthand, but the fact is it was reinvestment.

Reinvestment is one of the R's in that American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and Mr. Speaker, I want the American people to bear in mind that investment is what we need at this time so that we can continue our upward trajectory for jobs.

I hope that our friends on the other side of the aisle who are going to get the gavels after they assume leadership continue this effort to try to reinvest in America for the sake of manufacturing. We will see. They will have the chance. But the fact is that this Democratic Congress put this country on a platform and a foundation for future growth in jobs and manufacturing.

There was mention a moment ago of the investment act. Not only did we invest in scientific research, we invested in infrastructure. We not only invested in infrastructure, but in our health care bill we invested in making sure that we have the educational wherewithal to take care of our people into the future. Tremendous investments in education, for medical education, so that we can take care of our people. That, again, will fuel manufacturing because part of manufacturing is medical device manufacturing so that we have the educational talent to make those instruments that are life saving in this world.

So you put the health care bill, together with the Recovery Act, what you're talking about is a recipe for making things that will help life-saving research take place through American innovation and manufacturing.

So I just want to commend you for being down here week after week. Whether you have a bunch of people helping you or whether you're by yourself, you have an enduring commitment to making sure the American people know that manufacturing is not declining--well, it has been but it doesn't have to be declining--in America. It can be ascending in America if we make the investments in education and research and the things that we talked about earlier.

I want to say that being from the Midwest, and I'm so proud to be from the State of Minnesota, wonderful State. We already had a little bit of snow there. I know you all don't know what that is in California. It's white, fluffy stuff. The fact is we even in the State of Minnesota are investing in wind. We are investing in biofuels. We are investing in all sorts of green energy producing methods that also require that we're going to be manufacturing new technology but also transmission lines to transfer the energy that we make based on our innovation.

In the course of the time between August and now, we've been home a lot, working hard but back in our districts, and I had the opportunity to go to a number of manufacturing companies in my district. 10K Solar, they know who they are. They're in Minnesota. They are a cutting-edge solar innovation manufacturing company. Other companies are making new fascinating things with wind technology. And this is the kind of thing we want to stimulate. This is what is going to continue to make America the great economic power that it has been, and I just hope that we can get some real bipartisan cooperation to continue this drive so that we can continue to make America that country that is the envy of the world.

And so unfortunately, Congressman, I'm going to have to leave you to carry the weight tonight, but again, I just want to thank you for your commitment and just say that I draw inspiration from the pictures that you're about to explain right now.

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