Democrats Flesh Out Schedule for Jobs Bills, Prepare Campaign Pitches

Democrats next week will intensify their effort to show voters that they are concerned about unemployment by voting on at least three bills designed to help create well-paying manufacturing jobs.

The “Make It in America” campaign consists so far of fairly non-controversial legislation, and it will continue in that vein next week, the last before the House leaves for the August recess.

But things could heat up in September, with the strong possibility that the House will consider a bill (HR 2378) designed to pressure China to end the practice of pegging the yuan to the dollar by purchasing the U.S. currency. Critics say the practice undervalues China’s currency and makes Chinese exports cheaper, taking business away from domestic manufacturers and resulting in job losses.

“Many Americans worry that industry and the jobs it provides are gone for good. This group of Democrats rejects that,” Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland said Thursday as he and about 20 other Democrats gathered to promote their effort. Democrats say their drive will boost President Obama’s campaign to sharply increase exports over the next few years.

Next week, Hoyer said, the House will consider at least three bills, all sponsored by Democrats. Legislation by Daniel Lipinski of Illinois (HR 4692) would require the president to present a national manufacturing strategy every four years. A second measure (HR 5156), by Doris Matsui of California, would encourage clean-energy exports. The third, creating a commission to consider ways of cutting the national trade deficit (HR 1875), comes from Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon.

A fourth bill may also be considered, Hoyer said. The measure being drafted by Ways and Means Chairman Sander M. Levin of Michigan would extend a new type of municipal bond funded by the $787 billion economic stimulus package (PL 111-5) to help lower borrowing costs for local government projects.

That measure is also expected to have provisions for transportation infrastructure spending that would be paid for by eliminating one of the Democrats’ favorite targets: tax breaks that they say give U.S. companies incentives to ship jobs overseas.

After the recess, Hoyer said, the Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing on the Chinese currency manipulation bill, which Democrat Tim Ryan of Ohio is sponsoring.

Levin said that even though China recently announced a program of appreciating the value of its currency, an action that would make the country’s exports more expensive, the increase has amounted to only about 1 percent. “That’s very unsatisfactory,” he said.
Democrats’ ‘Jobs’ Message

Several other bills are still in the mix, Hoyer said.

The House on July 21 passed a bill (HR 4380) cutting tariffs on the importation of hundreds of industrial components used by manufacturers. Two days earlier, the House passed a measure (HR 1855) that would encourage partnerships among businesses, unions and educators to train workers for jobs in the manufacturing sector.

The Democratic effort is being coupled with a blast at Republicans as the midterm elections draw nearer. In the prepared text of a speech to be delivered Friday at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank with close ties to the White House, Hoyer says: “The fact remains that Republicans have an 18-month pattern of standing, with near-unanimity, against every measure to create jobs for the middle class.”

“Our work is not done,” the prepared remarks continue. “But we’ve stood up to Wall Street, brought access to affordable health care to all Americans, reinstated pay-as-you-go and fiscal discipline, and gone to bat for job creation, in the face of ideological opposition, again and again for 18 months running. . . . Democrats can tell middle-class America with confidence: We have stood for your interests. And we have met crisis with the optimism that defines our country at its best and can make a great nation even greater.”

Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio said earlier this week that he has told his members to spend August concentrating on the Democrats’ “jobs-killing agenda.”

The Democratic Congress and Obama have run up spending and the deficit, Boehner said, contending that businesses have frozen new hiring because of uncertainty about future regulations in health care and the financial industry. They are also concerned, he said, about, the effects of possible climate change legislation. Republican leaders say the Democrats’ manufacturing agenda will not help as long as businesses are reluctant to invest.

“We have a very organized effort for August,” Boehner said. His members have been asked to hold town hall meetings where constituents will be encouraged to take part in the GOP’s “America Speaking Out” campaign to help draft a platform for the midterms. Boehner has pledged to unveil that effort after Labor Day.