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Economy


Overview

Job growth is a major factor in building our economy. The recovery from the Great Recession has helped many individuals and families, but many families still face economic insecurity and workers' wages have not seen significant growth since then. I believe that Congress must show much greater urgency in helping the millions of workers who may be still struggling to find good-paying jobs. There are many commonsense and traditionally bipartisan steps that we should take to help people find work, advance their careers, and improve their economic well-being.

Supporting research and development in modern technology, investing in domestic manufacturing, and rebuilding our nation's infrastructure are ways we can bring jobs back to the U.S. and keep our nation at the forefront of discovery, progress, and efficiency.

Furthermore, we must balance the budget. Congress needs to seek a comprehensive deficit reduction package that makes smart, targeted cuts that do not deplete critical funding from programs that are essential to our well-being, economic competitiveness, and national security – like training for U.S. servicemembers so we're prepared for future threats–and looking for new revenue to ensure that everyone pays a fair share in investing in our country's success.

For example, I have cosponsored legislation introduced by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), H.R. 297, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which would close a number of offshore tax loopholes, eliminate many of the tax incentives for U.S. companies to move jobs outside of the United States, and modify rules on corporate inversions for businesses dodging U.S. taxes. Additionally, I have introduced legislation, H.R. 5291, the Offshore Wind Jobs and Opportunity Act, to support the training and education of a new generation of American offshore wind workers. This legislation would create a new federal grant program to assist higher education, unions, state and local governments, and nonprofits to develop training programs and curricula to help develop an offshore wind workforce. These bills are examples of critical opportunities to ensure America's workforce remains competitive in a global economy.

I believe that unpaid for tax cuts are a major threat to the American economy and our people. I oppose legislation that makes large tax cuts permanent without proposing ways to make up the lost revenue. When we create a huge hole in the federal budget, it threatens funding to programs that are vital to our economy and to our people like Medicare and Social Security.

 

Jobs

Reducing unemployment and growing jobs in America is a cornerstone for strengthening our economy. When President Obama assumed office after the financial crash in 2008, we were losing 800,000 jobs each month. Passage of the American Recovery Act a few months later, at the height of the Great Recession, helped stop the freefall of our economy and save and create jobs.

From early 2010 to the end of 2017, nearly 18 million jobs were added to the private sector. But we still have a lot of work to do to support workers' rights and keep jobs here on American soil.

Our country should find ways to further support domestic manufacturing and encourage nascent industries that are developing cutting-edge innovation, such as defense and clean energy technologies. Federal initiatives like the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation help to coordinate efforts amongst federal agencies invested in domestic manufacturing, support academic institutions focused on manufacturing innovation, and commercialize this innovation. These investments translate into growing jobs and the economy in the manufacturing sector.

That is why I support the "Make It In America" agenda, a plan focused on creating the best conditions for American businesses to manufacture their products, innovate, and create jobs right here in the U.S. When more products are made in America, there will be greater opportunity for our people to "Make It In America." I have also introduced the Offshore Wind Jobs and Opportunity Act, legislation to help develop the next generation of American workers in the offshore wind industry. The new federal grant program created by this legislation will assist colleges and universities, unions, state and local governments, and nonprofits to develop curricula, internships, and health and safety programs in this rapidly growing industry. The bill also prioritizes grants to community colleges, organizations that service minority populations and veterans, and those helping workers from other industries transition to the offshore wind industry. You can read more about the legislation here.

I also understand that many of the issues constraining growth in the middle class and the well being of our families are related to the economics of women's lives. That is why I support the "Economic Agenda for Women and Families," a plan that ensures that women receive equal pay for equal work, earned paid sick leave, and access to affordable, quality child care. In 2016, the federal government designated Massachusetts to be a location for one of the national manufacturing innovation institutes, which will be hosted at MIT with partnerships at UMass Lowell. The manufacturing institute, Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (link: http://go.affoa.org/how-affoa-works/), will help translate some of the cutting edge work in sensor and network technology done at our premier research universities to be integrated into fabric and fiber manufacturing. This technology has the potential to spur local and regional economic development as we integrate advances in medical and energy technology into the very clothing we wear. These technologies have the potential to save the lives of those with medical conditions, improve communication, and even protect our soldiers.

The Third District of Massachusetts and surrounding region has been growing into a hub for this kind of innovation, bringing together the area's academic, business and government resources to create jobs and develop state-of-the-art products.

Click here to go to my Jobs & Labor Issue Page and take a more detailed look at my work to grow jobs and support America’s workforce.

 


The Berry Amendment

I have long called for a correction to a serious loophole within the Department of Defense purchasing process that is costing American manufacturing jobs while inhibiting the ability of U.S. military personnel to train in high-quality American-made athletic footwear.

In 2016, I spearheaded the effort in the House of Representatives to require the Department of Defense to adhere to the Berry Amendment, a law passed in 1941 that to ensure that the Pentagon had access to quality textiles, food and other goods it might need in wartime. That year, I included an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill that sets policy and spending priorities for the Department of Defense, that requires adherence to this common-sense law. Along with my House and Senate colleagues, I worked to fend off multiple attempts to obstruct the implementation of this provision from those who feared that it would lower the quality of footwear provided to our servicemembers.

Today, the Pentagon has awarded contracts to three American companies manufacturing quality athletic shoes to new recruits. One of those companies, New Balance, has a significant manufacturing presence in Massachusetts – meanwhile, all three companies are utilizing soles manufactured by Vibram, USA, a company with a long and storied history in the Merrimack Valley. These contracts support hundreds of well-paying manufacturing jobs in the Third District, Massachusetts and the greater New England region.

 


Small Business

From the woman who runs a business out of her home, to the firm with 200 employees that designs high-tech products for the DOD, our small businesses serve vastly divergent markets and have differing needs. Historically, small businesses help bring economies out of recession, are highly motivated to be innovative, and create a significant percentage of new jobs. I will continue to seek opportunities to support public-private partnerships that advance small business and entrepreneurship.

Please visit my small business page detailing steps I have taken to support small growth companies in the Third District.

 

A Balanced Budget

For our economy to regain its footing, we must balance our national budget and generate long-term deficit reduction. The only way to do so is to combine targeted spending cuts with new revenue sources, just as every bipartisan group that has looked at this problem has suggested. That is why I have consistently voted for budgets that take such a balanced approach to deficit reduction and have called on Republican leaders in the House to negotiate with their Senate counterparts to achieve the same. The American people deserve open debate on this critical national issue.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) set limits on discretionary spending and was originally projected to save about $900 billion during the decade after it went into effect. The law created a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also called the "Super Committee," to develop and present a plan to achieve at least $1.2 trillion more in additional savings over the course of ten years. The law included a provision called sequestration to serve as an incentive for the Super Committee to come to a deal. If the committee had done so, and Congress had passed it by December 23, 2011, then sequestration would have been avoided. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

Under sequestration, large across-the-board reductions have been made to essential federal programs and activities. The goal is to reduce the scale and scope of existing programs rather than fully eliminate any of them. In 2013, that meant $42 billion (7.7 percent) in defense cuts and $26.1 billion (5.1 percent) in domestic discretionary cuts. Combined with other sequestration cuts, more than $85 billion in federal spending was eliminated in that year alone.

Legislation passed in February 2018 increased the spending levels allowed for fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019. But sequestration could come back in fiscal year 2020.

I believe sequester-level funding has constrained our ability to make thoughtful investments in our nation’s future. However, we have seen proposals from the Trump Administration that exempt the Defense Department from the BCA while making deep cuts to other federal agencies. For example, President Trump has submitted multiple budgets that prioritize defense spending at the expense of other national priorities like education, infrastructure and economic development. He has submitted budgets with deep cuts to the State Department and USAID, to international security assistance programs that provide defense equipment and training to our partners abroad and to the Treasury Department’s office responsible for combating terrorist financing, just to name a few – and these cuts have been even more pronounced over a ten-year period. Increasing defense spending while cutting other initiatives crucial to our nation’s security will not only make us less safe but will undermine important investments key to our national competitiveness and our long-term prosperity.

 

Tax Reforms

Last year, House Republicans introduced H.R.1, their legislation to overhaul the U.S. tax code – a bill that would impact every American and shape our country for years to come. Speaker Ryan, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX), and other Republicans claimed that H.R.1 will benefit the American middle class. But plenty of independent analyses have shown this bill, now law, would have the opposite effect.

According to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, by 2027, nearly 83% of the cuts in H.R. 1 will go to the top 1%. It will raise taxes on 36 million hardworking, middle class American households. And because these tax reductions are not offset, this bill will add $1.5 trillion to our national deficit, meaning our children and grandchildren will pay the price and, inevitably, safety net programs like Medicare and Medicaid will be targeted for future debt and deficit reduction measures. Furthermore, 5 percent of taxpayers would pay more in taxes in 2018, with that number increasing 9 percent by 2025 and skyrocketing to 53 percent by 2027.

I heard from hundreds of people across Massachusetts' Third District who opposed a number of changes this law makes to our tax code. A measure that makes such drastic changes to our tax code should have received months of debate so that we could fully understand its impact. Instead, this legislation was developed behind closed doors by only a small number of Republicans without any public hearings or Democratic input at all. This is an irresponsible form of legislating that the American people rose up against when the Republican majority tried to jam through repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Before the bill was considered on the House floor, I wrote to Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sharing these concerns and urged them to delay the vote. You can read that letter here. I also shared those same views on the House floor. You can watch that speech here.

The Senate also advanced its own tax reform bill at light-speed. The far-reaching ramifications of this legislation included issues well beyond tax reform such as education, reproductive rights, and health care. For example, the bill included a change to the Affordable Care Act that, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, will lead to 13 million more uninsured people by 2027. In December, the House and Senate pushed through a hastily cobbled together bill combining these pieces of legislation and the President signed this bill into law.

I object to both the way in which each of these tax reform bills were crafted and the ways in which they would completely undermine the middle class. Instead of trying to pursue tax reform unilaterally, I believe Republicans and Democrats should be working together to create a tax reform bill that can make our tax code simpler, fairer, spur our economy, and benefit hardworking families and small businesses across the United States.

I have stood up against other tax unpaid for tax packages in the past. For example, I opposed the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015, often referred to as the “tax extenders” package extended a number of expiring individual and business tax cuts, even though it included a number of provisions that I have long supported. These cuts included, the Research & Development tax credit, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Child Tax Credit (CTC), and extensions of credits for clean energy and conservation efforts.

Permanently extending these very worthwhile tax cuts has a very real and very sizable cost, but this legislation did not address that cost. Commonsense and bipartisan options to pay for extensions of these tax provisions certainly exist, such as closing egregious loopholes that allow major corporations to reduce or eliminate the taxes they owe on billions of dollars in profit, but none of those options were included in that legislation. By making tax cuts permanent without proposing ways to make up the lost revenue, as this legislation does, we create a huge hole in the federal budget, which in turn will be used to threaten funding for the very programs I believe are vital to our economy and to our people like Medicare, Social Security and others. And because they are permanent, the chance to go back and fix the negative impact becomes highly unlikely.

I expressed this same concern in a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in November 2015. You can read a copy of my letter here.

You can also read an April 2016 op-ed I wrote in the MetroWest Daily News regarding this vote and the impact unpaid for tax legislation can have on the national deficit.

I strongly support comprehensive tax reform to close loopholes that allow some of the most profitable U.S. corporations and individuals to avoid paying their fair share. Every taxpayer deserves the certainty of knowing that the code is straightforward and fair and that everyone is contributing a fair share. That is why I have consistently cosponsored and voted for legislation to eliminate tax incentives that reward companies for moving overseas, eliminating jobs in the US, or hiding their income.

In 2013, I introduced the SERV Act to provide tax relief to senior volunteers. Under Massachusetts state law, cities and towns in the Commonwealth can choose to offer up to $1,000 in property tax abatement to senior citizens who volunteer a certain number of hours in service to their communities. This successful decade-old program has benefited both senior volunteers and their communities and has been discussed as a model for other states to follow. However, the IRS deems this abatement as taxable income, requiring each participating town to treat its senior volunteers as employees and file corresponding paperwork for them. The revenue collected as a result is negligible, but the bureaucratic headache for participating towns is significant, and has become an impediment to participation. The solution is the SERV Act, which exempts the abatement received by senior volunteers from counting for federal tax purposes. This bill would provide property tax relief that can help seniors stay in their homes and, just as important, relieve towns from the burdens of unnecessary paperwork.

In previous Congresses, I have introduced bipartisan legislation to provide tax relief to small business owners during the recession, led the successful effort to fix errors in the code that were preventing certain military servicemembers from receiving their tax refunds, and pushed for the elimination of tax laws like 1099 reporting requirements and mandatory 3% withholding for state and local contractors that created undue burdens on small businesses.


Economic Development

Growth in the national economy begins with growth in our cities and towns here in Massachusetts’ Third District. I have been a strong supporter of economic development projects across the region, exploring options, helping to secure federal funding and bringing together stakeholders from all avenues to ensure projects move forward. My office works hard to support federal funding for local development projects, but also for local organizations, such as health centers, fire departments and academic institutions, in order to fill in the blanks and kick-start economic growth.  The following are just a few examples of projects I have strongly supported and will have a significant economic impact on our region. 

 

Hamilton Canal Innovation District

The City of Lowell has undergone an extraordinary transformation that began when the Lowell National Historical Park was established within the city’s core, the first urban national park of its kind in the United States. I have strongly supported public investment in the Park, which has leveraged millions in private investment in the redevelopment of Lowell’s historic Hamilton Canal Innovation District. As a result, fifteen acres of vacant and underutilized land in the Jackson, Appleton, and Middlesex Street area are being redeveloped into a vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood spanning the Merrimack, Pawtucket and Hamilton Canals. When complete, the Hamilton Canal Innovation District will create nearly two million square feet of commercial, retail, and housing space in the heart of Lowell, as well as hundreds of new jobs and an estimated $400 million in annual tax revenue for the City.

I authored legislation passed into law that allows the City of Lowell to continue with development of the Hamilton Canal District Project by exchanging land with the Lowell National Historical Park. During discussion of this bill in the Natural Resources Committee, the Republican chairman called it a "great bill" that would spur economic development in the community.

Multiple federal agencies have recognized the importance of the Hamilton Canal Innovation District. The Environmental Protection Agency has contributed funding through their brownfields program to help clean the site of industrial contaminants, the Economic Development Administration has twice contributed more than $2 million to construct two critical bridges over the Hamilton and Pawtucket canals, and Federal tax credits have been used for a number of developments on the site. By leveraging the resources of multiple federal agencies and across multiple sector of government and the private sector, the Hamilton Canal Innovation District will be the next chapter in Lowell's redevelopment.

Click here for more information on the Hamilton Canal 

 

Manchester-Lawrence Rail Trail Corridor Revitalization

Building attractive, vibrant communities for people to live in is central to developing competitive 21st century cities and towns. Part of the challenge in doing this is ensuring past industrial sites are safe and attractive for public use. The Federal government has played a crucial role in this goal across the nation, and there are many projects in the Third District that have received Federal support. The Manchester-Lawrence Rail Trail project (link: https://www.groundworklawrence.org/railtrail) is one such project that has the potential to open up new sites for redevelopment in downtown Lawrence, improve community and recreational infrastructure such as Bourgoin and Manchester Street Parks, and create connectivity within the city and between communities. The project proposes to create a 1.4 mile multi-use recreational path along an abandoned railroad right-of-way and will connect Lawrence to a larger regional trail path network. I strongly supported the City of Lawrence's application to the Environmental Protection Agency for brownfield assessment and planning funding. The great work that Lawrence is completing is similar to the work that cities across the nation are doing with support from the Federal government. I look forward to working with community partners to advance the city's vision.

Read more about this project

 

Fitchburg Line Commuter Rail Project

 Reliable transportation is integral to our region's economy. Improving transportation options can open new employment or educational opportunities for individuals, these opportunities can help provide the rungs on a ladder to the middle class. Our region relies immensely on the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to get citizens to their jobs, classes, healthcare appointments, and more. I represent communities along three of the MBTA's commuter rail lines: Fitchburg, Lowell, and Haverhill. As I visit employers and employees in the Third District, I consistently hear how important it is for their employees to have reliable transportation. Knowing how important the rail network is to the region's economy, I do everything I can to enhance our transportation network to connect people to good jobs.

One project I was proud to support was the Fitchburg Line Commuter Rail Project. The Fitchburg line is a 50 mile rail corridor, the longest on the MBTA's network, running from Fitchburg to Boston which serves 10,000 daily riders. Significant Federal and state investment, $306 million, has been brought to bear on the Fitchburg line which was plagued with delayed trains and long commute times. The investment is focused on double-tracking portions of the line to enhance performance, replacement or repair of tracks and bridges, and station construction or improvements in South Acton, Littleton, and Fitchburg. Because of this package of Federal and state investment the infrastructure improvements on the Fitchburg line will increase reliability, enhance the passenger experience, attract new riders, reduce maintenance costs and commute times, and support statewide and regional economic development goals.

I am proud the Federal and state governments were able to work together with local communities to enhance economic development opportunities in the region. Already communities like the city of Fitchburg have capitalized on the transportation enhancements with new economic development opportunities and growth.

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