Ben Cardin - Senator for Maryland

Economy & Jobs

Our economy is continuing to recover following the worst recession since the Great Depression, but too many Marylanders and families across our country are still hurting, and too many people are still searching for jobs.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I am committed to developing and overseeing policies that will help grow our economy and create job opportunities for people in Maryland and all across the country.   It is crucial that we invest in core programs that will restore America’s competitive edge globally and help create jobs today and into the future.  Maryland is among the nation’s leaders in innovative technologies like alternative energy, biotech, health information systems and cybersecurity, all of which are critical to our economic development.

I also fought to be a member of the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee because I understand that small businesses are at the heart of our nation’s economy and job creation.  I will continue to work to ensure Maryland’s small businesses have access to credit and other tools essential for their success, and that the federal government is a partner and not an obstacle to their success. 

Key Facts

  • The Department of Defense’s Base Realignment and Closure program (BRAC) will create more than 20,000 new jobs in Maryland in 2011 and 60,000 new jobs in the state by 2015.
  • Ben co-authored a provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill that increases the FDIC-insured deposit limit from $100,000 to $250,000, which helps ensure safe and secure depositories for small businesses and individuals alike.

FAQs

What are you doing to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.?

America’s manufacturing sector has played a major role in  creating the strongest middle class in history by creating jobs and investing in our economy here at home. 

Unfortunately, nearly 60 percent of everything we buy today is made overseas.  In the last decade, 2.4 million jobs were shipped overseas.  To continue our national economic recovery, we need to make sure “Made in the USA” is the norm, rather than the exception.

We’ve seen promising signs for manufacturing in recent years.  Since January 2010, we’ve created 500,000 manufacturing jobs.  I started my “Made in Maryland” initiative to build on that progress by highlight the diverse products being produced in our great state and adding to the growth of our state’s economy.  By working with manufacturers all across the state, I hope to further policies that will promote the export of American goods, encourage businesses to bring jobs and innovation back to the United States, train and secure a twenty-first century workforce, and contribute to a national manufacturing strategy.  

How do we balance the budget without endangering the economic recovery?
I have spoken on the Senate floor to outline what I believe it will take to get control of our deficit while also ensuring our economic recovery and future prosperity.  We did this before in the 1990’s under President Clinton and we can do it again, but we must face facts: a credible budget plan involves cuts to military and domestic spending, control of entitlement spending and reform of our tax code. Cuts to domestic spending alone – education, job training, and public transportation, among others – will threaten our recovery and cannot balance the budget.  In dealing with our budget deficit, any action we take must continue to move our economy forward -- not add to our problems and reduce chances of an economic recovery.

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