The Senior Senator from Ohio, Sherrod Brown, met with the Cleveland Club of Washington, D.C., on September 14

The Senator and his wife Connie Schultz live in Cleveland. He told the Club he loves and is proud of the city and thinks it’s one of the best places to live in the country -- though he believes it needs to do a better job promoting its advantages such as the hospitals, colleges and universities, and arts institutions.

Senator Brown said he lamented the “decades” of trade and tax policy he has felt for a long time undermined NE Ohio’s industrial base. But he is proud of having recently helped to pass the American Rescue Plan, which, he said, contained a pension fix that would help small businesses and 100,000 Ohio union workers. He is proud of the work he did to expand the Child Tax Credit, which he said will help families of 92% of Ohio’s children. He also was pleased with the Senate’s passage of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, aspects of which will help Cleveland and Ohio industry.

He said that traditionally the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has given undue attention to big banking, whereas he as Chairman will steer it more to addressing such smaller financial institutions as community banks and credit unions. He will also work to shift its focus to housing, including inequities arising out of historic redlining, and to reviving inner cities. He noted that in the 1950s when Cleveland’s population was about 900,000 only 2,000 people lived downtown whereas now with less than half that population, 20,000 persons live downtown. He said he is working to help real estate companies convert commercial office space to affordable residences in city cores – as is happening in Cleveland – because internet usage allows more people to work from home and thereby frees up existing office space.

Other points Senator Brown made when answering questions from Club participants:

With respect to trade, he said he believed Congress won’t make the mistakes of the past and welcomes reforms in the Competition Act, including better provision for using U. S. materials and workers rather than outsourcing.
He advocates a small tax on corporation stock buy-backs to encourage companies instead to invest in their workers, research and development, and other value-creating activities, and believes some form of his proposed legislation concerning it will be part of new federal revenue-raising.

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Senator Brown is Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. He also serves on the Finance Committee, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee.

You can learn more about Senator Brown’s positions at his website www.brown.senate.gov or in his three books: Myths of Free Trade -- Why American Trade Policy has Failed; Congress from the Inside; and Desk 88 -- Eight Progressive Senators who Changed America.