Biden praises the Recovery Act three years later

THREE YEARS ago today, in his first major act in office, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It stirred a great debate. Some called it too big; others, too meager. With just a handful of exceptions, Republicans maligned it as the absolute wrong approach to creating jobs.

Today, that argument is settled. The Recovery Act did what we asked of it. Three million jobs were created or saved. Essential investments in keeping teachers on the job, building a domestic clean-energy industry, and repairing our roads and bridges have helped to foster the economic growth that we are now starting to see. The president is building an economy meant to last, and the Recovery Act is part of the foundation.

It's easy to forget how grave our problems were in February 2009. We had inherited an economy in free-fall. Our own economists told us that a depression was all but inevitable unless we took bold and immediate steps. Our country lost 3.5 million jobs in the six months before the president and I took office. We lost another 4 million before policies like the Recovery Act took effect.

Today, we have had 23 straight months of private-sector growth. Businesses have added 3.7 million new jobs. And, thanks to the tough choice that the president and I made to stand with the autoworkers at General Motors and Chrysler, the American auto industry is back. The industry went from losing 400,000 jobs in the year before we took office to creating nearly 190,000 jobs since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, and GM is once again the world's top-selling auto company.

The investments we made in the Recovery Act have helped to spark whole new industries. As a result of our investments in the advanced-battery industry, the United States is on track to go from producing less than 2 percent of the world's advanced batteries in 2009 to having 40 percent of the production capacity by 2015.

Today, companies are not just expanding their U.S. operations - some are actually moving production from countries like China and Mexico back to American shores. And many more middle-class families see a brighter future than the bleak horizon they faced when we arrived at the White House.

You see it right here in Philadelphia, where the Recovery Act is helping SEPTA rebuild the Girard and Spring Garden stations. That project has put more than 100 people back to work.

The Recovery Act, and investments like these, played a critical role turning our economy around.

BUT HERE'S the big thing that the president and I are trying to do: We are determined to restore a basic middle-class bargain that has existed for generations - a bargain that says that if American workers contribute to America's economic success, they are entitled to share in its benefits.

This bargain is the reason millions of hardworking men and women can imagine owning a home in a decent neighborhood, sending their children to college and providing for their own retirement. In his State of the Union address last month, the president called keeping the bargain alive "the defining issue of our time."

And to have a strong American middle class, we need American manufacturing to come back strong. We realize that the middle class was built - that our very economy was built - on the back of the manufacturing sector. We realize that America still has the most productive workers in the world. And we realize that in order for our economy to recover, we need to have American companies putting Americans to work making things in America again.

When I travel around the country, I see that this is already happening.

You have probably heard a lot about outsourcing jobs, but in the coming months you are going to hear a new word: "insourcing" - American companies bringing jobs back home from abroad.

A FEW WEEKS ago, the president and I hosted a meeting of business leaders from companies like DuPont, Ford Motor, Siemens, Master Lock and others. They had a basic message for us: Not only are they coming home, but they see a trend in the coming decades that could result in millions of jobs for American workers. Our administration believes that we should do everything in our power to hasten that move.

These companies gave explicit examples as to why they were coming home. They talked about what they call the total cost of doing business. They talked about the need to look at business trends when they are building a factory and expect it to last 25 to 30 years. And they concluded that the future belongs to the United States.

And so have the president and I.

That is why we need a tax code that rewards companies for bringing jobs back to America instead of encouraging companies to ship jobs overseas. Our plan would scrap a tax deduction for companies when they close down a factory to ship jobs overseas, and redirect the money to cover moving expenses for companies that bring jobs back. And we are proposing to make sure that companies that ship jobs overseas pay a new minimum tax on their overseas profits, instead of giving them a tax advantage over businesses that keep jobs here at home.

The Recovery Act was meant to give the economy the jolt it desperately needed. Three years later, it is clear the jolt got us pretty far down the road. We have a long way to go as we work to reinvigorate manufacturing and ultimately rebuild the middle class. The president and I will not stop - will not rest - until the millions of Americans who have struggled in recent years can look their children in the eye and say, "Honey, it's gonna be OK."