It has been nearly one-and-a-half years since the President signed the one-trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill into law and now the majority has come up with a new “make it in America” agenda.  Which begs the question, if stimulus was such a success, why don’t we already make it in America? 

The facts are, after stimulus:

• The unemployment rate continues to hover near 10 percent – well above the 8 percent we were promised.
• Instead of “creating or saving” 3.7 million jobs, over 2.6 million private sector jobs have been lost – including over 707,000 manufacturing jobs and nearly 100,000 in my home state of Michigan.
• Overall 47 out of 50 states have lost jobs.

We used to make it in America and if Democrats would stop passing bills that spend more money on state and local governments and instead focus on small businesses we might actually see the real, sustained private sector jobs creation Americans need. 

Given the Democrats’ record, it should come as no surprise that more Americans believe Elvis is alive than believe the stimulus bill created jobs.  And, it should also come as no surprise that this bill won’t create jobs either.

In fact, I have a letter here from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation representing more than three million businesses, and they oppose this bill – and ask unanimous consent to insert it into the Record. 

Let me read you what real job creators think about this bill:

The Chamber says this bill would “impose draconian tax increases on American worldwide companies that would hinder job creation, decrease the competitiveness of American businesses, and deter economic growth.”

I want to repeat that: this bill would “impose draconian tax increases on American worldwide companies that would hinder job creation, decrease the competitiveness of American businesses, and deter economic growth.”

That’s right, this bill raises taxes on employers during a recession – making it tougher for Americans to find needed work.  You cannot expect to increase jobs in this country when you are increasing taxes.  It just doesn’t work.  Yet, that is exactly what the majority is proposing to do in this bill.

Now, this bill closely resembles a bill the Majority has already pushed through the House once before – H.R. 4849, the so-called Small Business and Infrastructure Jobs Tax Act of 2010.  At the time, I said that bill was more about small governments than it was about small businesses, since most of the bill was about aid to state and local governments instead of helping small businesses. 

Like H.R. 4849, the vast majority of the spending in the bill – a whopping $25.6 billion over 11 years – goes to state and local governments through various “infrastructure incentives.”  These include a substantial increase in spending on the “Build America Bonds” program, a heavily subsidized spending program providing direct payments to state and local governments that issue these bonds.  But small governments are not small businesses, and they do not create the kind of private-sector jobs we need.

Unlike H.R. 4849, however, the Democrats didn’t even bother to provide token tax relief for small businesses in this bill. 

And, in case you needed more evidence that this bill isn’t about helping U.S. employers or about helping Americans find jobs, just look at the extra $5 billion in welfare spending in this bill – so much money CBO says the states won’t even be able to spend all of it. Democrats claim this spending is for jobs, but 75 percent of these welfare emergency funds that were already give to the states have been spent on more welfare checks, not jobs.

I urge my colleagues to vote NO on increasing taxes on American jobs, and to vote no on this legislation.

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