Sen. Schumer: It's Time to Make it in America
By Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
Under the leadership of President Biden and Senate Democrats, 6.6 million jobs have been created and the economy is growing at its fastest rate in decades.
Now, it is imperative that we build on this progress.
American families need us to act to lower their costs. This is a problem with a global scale. The pandemic has claimed the lives of millions and wreaked havoc on strained supply chains struggling to restock already depleted inventories, failing to keep up with demand and raising prices on everyday products. Decades of disinvestment in American manufacturing has especially made the country vulnerable to these supply chain shocks.
Because of the inability of global supply chains to keep up with the strong demand fueled by a booming U.S. economy, supply chains have gone from barely noticed by consumers to the forefront of the minds of American families. Today, lowering costs and relieving pressure on supply chains is the top pocketbook issue facing the American people. That is why we need to act.
Democrats have an opportunity to go on offense on lowering costs and fixing supply chains by passing legislation that tackles them head on. And over the last few weeks, the House and Senate have done just that.
The competition bills passed by the Senate last June and the recently passed House companion constitute the largest effort in decades by Congress to increase domestic manufacturing, lower costs and fix our supply chains, and boost innovation here at home. These proposals cover a lot of ground Americans care about: jobs, prices, and bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.
Perhaps the best example of how these bills do that is our country’s alarming shortage of semiconductor chips. Once the world leader in chip production, America now largely relies on overseas companies. The current chip shortage has sent shockwaves across the global economy, hamstringing the production of everything from cars and cell phones to refrigerators and medical devices. By investing over $50 billion to increase domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, this bill would make Americans less reliant on chips from abroad and help reduce prices by beginning to fix the chip shortage.
This is precisely the kind of action the American people are looking for – and we will work to get it done.
Senator Charles E. Schumer (@SenSchumer) is the Senate Majority Leader.