Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is traveling around New York making her case for Democratic economic policies. Thursday she did so at a boat manufacturing facility in Cape Vincent.
MetalCraft Marine told the senator and an audience of local leaders it will hold a job fair Tuesday and plans to add about 10 more staff to its current team of 13 at its Cape Vincent location. The company builds specialized boats for work, rescue and firefighting. MetalCraft has Kingston, Ontario and Clayton shops, but the facility in Cape Vincent is where it's growing. Gillibrand applauded the company's expansion.
Gillibrand said Democrats' emphasis on government investment in job training, infrastructure and tax credits is the key to national economic growth. The senator said that was demonstrated by the fact that about half of the workers at the event said they got their jobs through a local career center.
"The quickest way to pay down the debt and reduce the deficit is to create a growing economy," she said. "The way you create a growing economy is to invest in job creation. So investing in small business with tax credits, tax incentives; investing in made-in-the-U.S.A. manufacturing; investing in our agricultural sectors; investing in our infrastructure; investing in our workforce training."
Gillibrand contrasted her view of economics with those who advocate what she called a “cut-only” approach.
"They want to reduce government to such a small size that there's no money for workforce training, no money for children at risk who need food, no money for early childhood education, no money for tax benefits for made-in-the-U.S.A. manufacturing," she said. "That's a mistake."
Gillibrand encouraged MetalCraft officials to include military veterans among their planned hires, touting a new tax credit they can claim if they do so, to help combat high veteran unemployment.
The senator also said she and her colleagues in Congress are working on creating a tax credit by the
end of the year to encourage more new U.S. manufacturing jobs.